The Pyramid of Darkness
by Dream Ablaze
Summary: Sora, Kari, Rika, and Zoe are pulled together into one dimension as the only ones who can save the Digital World and Real World dimensions from chaos. But first they must learn to save their own hearts...
1. I:1: Love Triangles

Hey everyone, it's Dream Ablaze here (but call me Rea) with a new Digimon fic. :3 This story is probably the reason why I haven't updated 'Fast Times at Odaiba High' very recently, so if fans of that are reading this, please don't kill me. x-x; Yes, I realize I should be working on some of my other fics instead of writing a completely new one, but. I'm not. xD;**  
**

Disclaimer: I don't own Digimon. I do, however, own this plotline. Yaay. :3

I hope you enjoy this first short chapter!

**The Pyramid of Darkness**  
**Part I, Chapter 1: Love Triangles**

Sora was really getting tired of this.

She'd thought that once she quit soccer and took up, oh, say, tennis, she'd be free of it all. But it had just gotten worse, as today illustrated. Two of her best friends had showed up after practice, and instead of being happy to see them like she would have once been, she sighed to herself, not even masking a smile.

"Hey Tai. Hey Matt," she said monotonously at seeing the two boys standing before her. The brown-haired boy had a wide grin on his face, and the blonde looked content also, though his hands were shoved in his pockets and he didn't show it much.

"Hi, Sora!" they said in unison. It was going to be a long walk home.

"Sor, I was wondering if you missed playing soccer at all. Cause I'd be willing to play anytime you wanted. Just say the word, okay?" Tai offered.

"Um, yeah! Thanks!" Sora said.

"Someone was talking about how good your voice is," Matt said. "You know, you could sing in one of our songs if you wanted to."

"Wow, really?" Sora said, eyes widening. Matt's band was pretty big now, and this was kind of a chance of a lifetime. Sure, she didn't really aspire to be a singer or musician, but it was still a kind of insane offer.

Tai crossed his arms. "You know, Mimi has a much better voice than Sora. You should use her instead," he said, sulking.

"Are you serious? I'm sure Sora's voice is great!" Matt said.

Tai looked flustered, like he thought Matt was currently winning. "Her soccer-playing skills are better! Sora, if you ever wanted to come back and play soccer again, I can be your personal coach. I mean, you were really good, but you haven't played in a long time."

Tai was such a good soccer player, so this was also really nice – even if he was just saying it because he'd insulted her singing voice, which _wasn't_ very good, a few seconds ago. It was especially nice considering he could be improving his own soccer skills instead of teaching her new techniques.

"That's so nice…" Sora said. "If I ever get back into soccer, I'll let you know!"

"You were into soccer once, so it'll be easy for you to get back into it," Tai said decisively, calming down now that he felt he had the upper hand. "Not like singing, which you were never into."

Matt just glared at him, and Sora tried to keep her unaffected face without killing one of them or more.

-x-

"You both signed up to be in dance class with me?" Kari asked, eyes wide as she stared at the two boys in front of her. Both were beaming.

"Hey, I'm a great dancer! Besides, if we get to dance with partners, you and me can be together!" Davis said enthusiastically.

"Don't worry, you don't have to dance with him. That's why I signed up!" TK added. "You can just dance with me instead. What are best friends for, right?"

"Hey, I'm her best friend, TS!" Davis retorted.

"My name's _TK_! And um… Let's see… I've known her since we were eight. And how long have you known her?" TK countered.

"We have a much closer relationship! It's quality, not quantity that matters!"

"Hey, hey! Guys! Um, you're both my best friends! And I'll dance with both of you in dance class," Kari said with a fake smile.

"I want to dance with you first!" Davis cried.

"You both will, or neither of you will," Kari said, shooting them both a slight glare. Neither of the guys knew if she was joking or not – and to tell the truth, she wasn't really sure either. After all, she'd gotten so sick of Davis and TK's constant rivalry lately that she wasn't really acting herself.

She and Sora had conversations about the confusing love triangles they were in, and how both guys competed constantly for the girl's attention and praise. They were both utterly sick of it. Neither of them wanted to choose between the guys, despite any feelings they might have had, knowing that if they did, they might lose the other one as a friend. Friendship was much more important than some short-lived romantic relationship that would ultimately kill that friendship, too. That was what Sora said, anyway. She was a bit more jaded about the whole thing than Kari – probably because she was older?

Kari valued their friendships too much to put any in jeopardy. So she didn't even consider her own feelings when she decided not to favor either or them and merely stay friends with them both. She'd once teased Davis by flirting with TK, but now she realized that was wrong. It had only made the relationship between the three worse. It might have seemed fun to be in a love triangle at one point, but now it was just tiresome.

"Let's just go buy you guys ballet slippers," Kari said with a sigh.

Both guys froze. "_Ballet_?"

-x-

Rika wasn't a big birthday person. So you were a year older – so what? It just meant you were getting older and closer to death, she thought cynically. There was nothing good to birthdays, especially when faced with a dilemma like hers.

She'd received two presents today that just made her even more confused. Well, okay, it wasn't so much the presents as much as the cards. With a scowl, she grabbed the first card again and read it.

_Dear Rika,_

_Happy birthday! You're older now, obviously, and I hope that you like my present. I spent a lot of work on it, and I hope you don't, you know, use it for firewood or anything. Or laugh at it, which might be worse. Um, I know it's not very good. I made you look uglier than you are. How about I just say I was afraid of making it too good because then it might come to life like Guilmon did? And it wouldn't be very good if there were two of you. You're unique and special and there's only one of you in the world, Rika. Hopefully you know what I mean here._

_Love, Takato_

Why did he have to write love at the end? No, she _didn't_ know what he meant at the end. Why couldn't he buy her a present, or make her… oh… bread, or something? Instead, he'd drawn her a picture of herself. Or at least she thought it was herself. She looked different. She was smiling. She thought she might actually look pretty in it – but Takato had said he'd made her look uglier than usual.

And what about the other card that was bugging her?

_Pumpkin!_

_Happy birthday! Don't worry, even when you get old and wrinkly you'll still be beautiful to me!_

_Hopefully my present impresses you, seeing as that's my sole aim in life._

_Ryo_

Ergh. Leave it to Ryo to shamelessly flirt – just to annoy her! – in a birthday card. He was just too predictable. Unfortunately, Ryo's present _did_ impress Rika. He'd gotten her an amethyst pendant, shaped like a diamond, on a silver chain. Her mother had seen it and almost gone crazy, saying Ryo was 'the one'. Naturally, she hadn't thought much of Takato's present.

Rika shoved the cards away, annoyed at herself. Why was she letting herself get all bothered by this? They were just stupid boys, they didn't mean anything. She told herself to stop thinking about their dumb birthday cards, though the nagging feeling in the back of her head made it almost impossible.

-x-

Zoe was going on a date. She couldn't help but smile as she neared the park, where she was supposed to meet him. Her first date ever, though a few guys had asked her out before. She'd turned them down, waiting for a certain boy to ask her out. After awhile, she grew too impatient and decided to ask him instead – and he'd accepted.

She was elated now, as she headed towards the park. She was so lucky! As she reached the park's edge and glanced around, she suddenly heard a voice calling out to her: "Zoe!"

She smiled and turned to see him. "Hey, Tak – " She trailed off when she saw that it wasn't her date, but JP running towards her. "Er, JP! What are you doing here?" she asked, silently begging him to leave. Oh, she hadn't even thought about JP, the boy who had a hopeless crush on her and had no idea about her date with Takuya. How could she have been so stupid? She didn't want to hurt JP…

"Just going for a walk," he said. Zoe stared at him. A walk? JP was always the one complaining about walking anywhere in the Digital World. "Okay, fine," he said, grinning. "You caught me! I called and your mom said you'd gone to the park."

"Oh…erm… yeah," Zoe said. "Listen, I just came to… do a strenuous exercise regime! You should probably leave if you don't want to do, um, a lot of strenuous exercise!"

"In that outfit?" JP asked, dubious, looking her over.

"JP, stop checking me out!" she shrieked, glaring at him. "I am so angry at your behavior that I am going to go over here and you are going to go home if you ever want me to forgive you!"

"Huh?" JP asked, scratching his head.

"Hey, Zoe!" came another voice, just as Zoe was about to quickly walk away from JP. "JP!"

_Oh crap_, Zoe thought. It was Takuya now, hurrying toward them with a grin.

"What a coincidence!" JP said with a grin. "Us all randomly meeting in the park like this!"

"Um, randomly?" Takuya laughed. "Zoe and I are meeting here – mmggh?" Zoe had clapped her hand over his mouth.

"Oops, sorry! You just had… um… something on your face," Zoe said lamely, not removing her hand. Takuya tugged away though, laughing.

"You're crazy," he told her. "Anyway, Zoe and I were meeting here before our – "

"Look, a Digimon!" Zoe cried, pointing at a dog walking by. The boys immediately glanced over, fists clenched. They saw the dog and looked back at Zoe strangely.

"Are you feeling okay?" Takuya asked.

"Not really. I think I'm very very sick," Zoe said with a sigh of relief. She had successfully changed the subject! Now JP would never know she and Takuya were going out, and she could tell Takuya later she wanted to keep their relationship a secret so she wouldn't hurt JP! How romantic!

"If you're sick, maybe we shouldn't go on a date today."

Zoe and JP both stared at Takuya, shocked – for different reasons, of course.

"Date?" JP asked, face falling.

Zoe shut her eyes tightly. Now she'd done it!

-x-

A faint light appeared in all three dimensions at once, freezing time for a split second and gathering those it called, carrying away the four girls before they even had a chance to register this in their heads.

They were rudely dumped before a celestial being, glowing with holy radiance, in a place where all worlds converge…

**End of Part I, Chapter 1: Love Triangles**

Soo, what'd you think of it:3 Suggestions, comments, criticisms, and whatever else are greatly appreciated! xD

Meaning _**PLEASE REVIEW**_, even if you hated it. ;


	2. I:2: Greetings and Salutations

Wow, I wasn't expecting so many people to read this. xD Yay! And I'm glad you all liked it, for the most part (going by the reviews of all the nice people who reviewed, that is). I'll take this time to thank you for reviewing! Thanks to The Illustionest, katy007, BandGeek95, Booklover13, su-pa kawaii, Depthmon, OversizedBucket, and MadamePika. (If I forgot anyone, I am even more incoherent than I thought.) You guys are all amazingly cool for reviewing and making me want to write more! ;D

Since most of your reviews mentioned couples you'd like to see, I'll try and make that a bigger part of the story. However, I can't promise anything in terms of couplings… Despite me being a diehard Takari fan, I have no idea who Kari will end up with. Though the opinions of reviewers can give me ideas to go by… So far, here are the votes…

Taiora: 2  
Sorato: 1  
Daikari: 2  
Takari: 2  
Kari/OC: 1  
Rukato: 2  
Ryuki: 2  
Zoe/Takuya: 2

Kind of intense, huh? What with Daikari and Takari tied, and Rukato and Ryuki tied.

However, I'm not sure how much of a romance fic this is actually going to be. Parts of it will be, of course. But… yeah.

Also, fans of 'Fast Times at Odaiba High' can't get mad at me for being a slow updater anymore cause I updated last night! Yaay! xD

Anyway, without further delay, here's the next chapter!

**The Pyramid of Darkness**  
**Part I, Chapter 2: Greetings and Salutations**

Sora, Kari, Rika, and Zoe opened their eyes after it seemed the glowing had died down a bit only to find they were in front of none other than Azulongmon.

"Azulongmon!" Kari gasped. She glanced around. "Sora? Where are we?" she asked. She'd felt inter-dimensional transport before, of course, when she'd gone to the Dark Ocean. But this had felt different. Better, naturally. But just as puzzling…

Rika rubbed her head, frowning at Azulongmon. She jumped up. "Are we in the Digital World? What are we doing here? Where's Renamon?" she demanded of anyone who knew. She wanted answers, _now_.

"No, we are not in the Digital World," Azulongmon said.

Zoe glanced at Rika strangely. "Who are you? And how do you know about the Digital World?" She'd thought only she and her friends knew about the Digital World. Had this other girl gone there on a separate Trailmon or something?

Rika crossed her arms. "What do you mean, how do I know? I'm a Tamer!" She suddenly looked back at Sora and Kari. "Wait a minute… Y-you're the kids from the Digimon TV show!" she accused. "What is going on?" she demanded, glaring at Azulongmon.

"I was with Tai and Matt… and then I was here," Sora said, confused and trying to figure out what was going on. "If this isn't the Digital World, then why is there a Digimon here?"

"Well, you're all humans, and this isn't the human world either," Azulongmon pointed out. "If only you'd listen, instead of asking questions… I am Azulongmon, for those of you who don't know. I am one of the four sovereigns of the Digital World."

"Sovereigns?" Zoe asked. "Umm… I never heard of any sovereigns!"

"That's because you aren't very well-informed," Azulongmon said dryly. "You are not in the Digital World, nor are you in the Real World. You are now in a place where all words converge. We rest on the very place and time where all worlds are united."

"What are we doing here?" Kari asked. She hoped the Digital World wasn't in danger again…

"I admit, I do not know why the four of you have been summoned. I did not summon you, or else I would have brought in the other child who holds my crest – the Child of Hope."

"If you don't know what we're doing here, why are you even talking to us?" Zoe asked flippantly, getting a stern look from Azulongmon.

"We don't have much time. We can't exist in this world much longer. All I know is that you are being summoned to the Digital World, and you must come with me and enter it. I trust the reason you're not there right now is because none of you have your Digivices with you. Am I correct?"

Nobody said anything. It was true. They all kept their Digivices at home, but they didn't carry them with them all the time.

"As I suspected," Azulongmon said. "Now, we will soon enter the Digital World – dimension one. I know I must bring you there, but I do not know anything else. I assume you will find your reasons for being there upon entrance. Come along, please."

Kari stood up first. She trusted Azulongmon, especially since she was the bearer of one of his crests. Sora trailed after her a bit dubiously, and then came Rika, who knew Azulongmon slightly.

Zoe was the most reluctant, but she didn't want to be alone, especially in this place. It was strange… There was no light in it except for that coming from Azulongmon and, for some reason, from each of the girls. The brunette with claret-tinted eyes glowed with the brightest light, a pale pink color. The other girls weren't as bright, but the colors were still distinguishable. The oldest looking girl, a redhead, emitted a soft red light, and the strawberry-haired girl with her hair up in a messy, spiked bun had blue around her. Zoe looked down at her own hands to see a light lavender aura around them.

"Are you coming?" Kari asked, looking back at Zoe.

Zoe bit her lip. She didn't know what to do. But going with these strangers was better than being alone… And she didn't know whether or not she'd be stuck here if she didn't take this opportunity to leave. She nodded and ran after the others as they made their way towards the giant blue dragon Digimon.

-x-

Soon, the four very confused girls were riding inside one of the clouds around Azulongmon.

"I wonder what we're doing here," Kari said. "I hope everyone is all right…"

Sora nodded. "Maybe we've just been called back because our partners miss us," she said hopefully but not very realistically. "I miss Biyomon, anyway."

"This doesn't make any sense," Rika said. "You're just characters from a TV show… you don't exist. I mean, I know Kazu has a crush on Kari, but… ugh, that doesn't matter!"

"We're not from a TV show," Sora said. "We're… um, real people. You must have us confused with someone else… Are you some of the international Digidestined? That somehow speak Japanese?"

Rika sighed. "I'm a Tamer, like I said."

"Does that mean you have a Digimon partner?" Kari asked.

Rika nodded. "Mmhmm. Renamon."

"Digimon _partner_?" Zoe asked disbelievingly. "How did you guys get Digimon for partners?"

They stared at her. "How do you know about the Digital World if you don't have a Digimon partner?" Kari asked.

"I'm a Legendary Warrior… I, um, _am_ a Digimon. Or I was, anyway…"

Rika shook her head. "This is getting too weird. Is this a dumb dream or something?" She frowned. One minute, she'd been in her room, regarding her stupid card problem. The next, she was… here. Though, as she looked over as Azulongmon continued sailing on, she saw an unfamiliar place, but familiar creatures down below. "Digimon," she said. Then she grew frustrated. "If we're in the Digital World, why isn't Renamon here yet?"

"Patience," came Azulongmon's booming voice. "This is not the Digital World you are used to. This is the Digital World that the Child of Light and the Child of Love are familiar with. Renamon will come, but it takes time."

"What? There's not more than one Digital World," Rika argued.

"There are different dimensions," Kari said softly. "We must all be from different ones, besides Sora and me. We're all from different dimensions of Earth. Each of those must have its own Digital World attached to it – so there must be many DigiWorld dimensions too." She hesitated, smiling a tiny bit, embarrassed. "Or not."

"That's relatively close," Azulongmon said.

"So when I saved the Digital World, I only saved one dimension of it?" Zoe asked, dismayed. "Or was Lucemon planning on destroying all the Digital Worlds?"

"You each encountered problems with the Digital World and you each helped – some of you were directly called and some of you came on your own free will. But you were all chosen to come here. Yes, all the threats were real, but they were really part of one larger threat. This threat manifested itself in different ways: Devimon, Myotismon and his other forms, the Dark Masters, Apocalymon, the D-Reaper, Cherubimon, Lucemon… The list goes on, but they were all part of one."

Sora looked skeptical. "So you're saying…"

"All these events happened at one time in your dimensions. Well, in a way. You see, the Tamers entered the Digital World at the same time as Cherubimon was reverted to his Digi-Egg form, and at the same time Apocalymon was defeated. Time passes differently in different dimensions, so Malomyotismon, the D-Reaper, and Lucemon were all defeated at the same time."

"Is that really possible?" Sora asked.

"If only Izzy were here," Kari sighed. Or any of the others… She wasn't a good leader. She just wasn't strong enough. Tai was always the leader in her family, and had been on their first adventure. The second and more recent time, Davis and TK were kind of co-leaders, the way she thought of it. Davis took the role of leader, but it was TK who knew the Digital World best – well, she and TK both did, but he was more assertive than she was. He was much more of a leader. She didn't know how to handle things when it was just down to her. She didn't like to trouble others, but she knew that she wasn't strong enough to be independent. That was why she was always relying on Tai or her friends. Thankfully, Sora was here.

"I will present you with a gift that will let you travel through dimensions," Azulongmon said. "I was told you need it. Renamon will be able to pass between dimensions if you call for her." He was flying lower to the ground until he finally landed and the four girls got out of the cloud.

"So you have no idea what we're supposed to do here?" Zoe asked.

Azulongmon ignored her. "Child of Light, since the gift I am about to bestow upon you is created from light, only you may touch it. As soon as you do, it will enter your heart and stay with you until no longer needed."

Kari nodded, stepping forward.

"I must warn you… It may present some problems later on. Your heart will accept it, and it will be quite useful at times. Yet the powers of darkness will hurt you more. Will you accept it?"

Kari hesitated. When darkness was strong enough, it already hurt her a great deal. She was scared she wouldn't be able to withstand it if it was any stronger. But Azulongmon had said it was a gift that would let them travel between dimensions, and that it would be needed. She nodded.

Sora did not see anything happen, and neither did the other girls. But in a split second, Kari was kneeling on the ground. Sora rushed over to her. "Kari! Are you okay?" She knelt next to her.

Kari nodded, lifting her head and smiling a tiny bit. "I'm fine," she said softly. "Just got a little dizzy there."

"Call for your Digimon and they will come for you. I must go now," Azulongmon said.

"Thank you," Kari murmured, still too weak to say much. The blue dragon soared into the sky, flying away.

"We'd better call our Digimon," Sora said. "Then we can decide what we're doing next."

Rika nodded, and the three girls with Digimon partners closed their eyes.

_Biyomon, I'm not sure what I'm doing here, but I'm in the DigiWorld. Just Kari and I are here, besides these other girls who we don't know. Please come…_

_Gatomon, I hope I'm not interrupting anything, but I'm in DigiWorld! Azulongmon brought Sora, two others girls, and me here, but he doesn't know why… Anyway, can you come meet me?_

_Renamon… I'm here in your world. Only… in another dimension. Azulongmon said you can go between dimensions. Anyway, I guess it'd be cool if you showed up or whatever._

Zoe stared at the girls, eyes widening. She saw the strange auras return around them. But as soon as each of them opened their eyes, the light died down.

Renamon was the first to appear, materializing almost out of thin air beside Rika. "I'm here," she said. "Ugh. Haven't traveled between dimensions in a long time… Without using a portal, of course."

Zoe nearly fell over backwards. "Ahh! Where'd she come from?"

"Another dimension," Rika said simply. "It's nice to see you again, Renamon…" She smiled up at her partner, a bit unsurely. "Hope it didn't take too much out of you…"

"Sora! Up here!" came another voice. It was Biyomon, flying in the sky… with Gatomon on her back?

Kari stood back up and laughed as Biyomon flew closer to the ground and Gatomon leapt from her back. The girl caught her cat Digimon with a smile. "Gatomon! What an entrance!"

"Well, flying is the fastest way to get around," Gatomon replied, nuzzling Kari's chin with the top of her head.

Biyomon landed on the ground next to her human partner. "Sora!" she exclaimed happily. "You're here!"

"Hi, Biyomon! I missed you…"

Zoe watched them all, and she couldn't help but feel a bit envious. How come she'd never gotten a Digimon partner? It sounded too good to be true… How often had she felt alone on their adventure, without someone to stick by her? Okay, JP did that enough, but still… It would have been nice to have someone like these girls did.

"What are you doing here?" Biyomon asked.

"I'm not sure," Sora replied. "Azulongmon just said – "

"Oh no," Kari suddenly said, and she dropped back to her knees, still holding Gatomon in her arms.

"Kari, what's wrong?" the white cat Digimon asked her, worried.

"Darkness," Kari said. "It… hurts. More than usual. Azulongmon's gift – " Sora knelt down next to her, concerned.

"I sense it too," Renamon murmured. "Something's coming, and I don't like the feeling of it. Rika, get ready."

"I don't have any cards with me," Rika said. "I don't even have my D-Power!"

"Sora, do you have your Digivice?" Biyomon asked. "I'm a little tired, but I can Digivolve to Birdramon if you need me to!"

"I don't have it," Sora said. "None of us have ours…"

Gatomon's eyes narrowed. She was the only Champion here, so she had to do her best to protect Kari and the others. Biyomon and Renamon could help, but Gatomon didn't know how far they could get against an opponent. Hopefully it was a weak Digimon coming towards them… But where was it coming from?

Suddenly, a huge dark Digimon appeared before them, out of thin air – just like how Renamon had come. Kari bent over, shaking, even though her eyes were closed tightly. The Digimon looked almost like a dragon covered with metal and wires, making him seem like some kind of machine. He was a dark blue and had huge bat-like wings on his back, along with eerie red eyes and maroon claws. Metal was embedded into his face, arms, tail, and wings, and his tail divided into wires crackling with electricity at the end.

"What is that thing?" Rika spat, trying to hide the fact that she was scared.

"I don't know," Renamon replied. "I've never seen it before. It must be an endangered species of Digimon, or…" She trailed off there as the Digimon stepped towards them. Renamon stood protectively in front of Rika, arms outstretched and eyes narrowed. She was about to speak to the approaching Digimon, but was surprised when the small cat Digimon beat her to it.

"What do you want?" Gatomon demanded, stepping forward. Biyomon also came to stand in front of the other girls.

The Digimon said nothing.

"This doesn't seem right," Renamon said to Rika. "That Digimon is emitting entirely dark energy, and the girl and her Gatomon are giving off so much light energy. For the dark Digimon to restrain himself, to not attack what he has been created to hate… It must take all his willpower. Something seems wrong here," she said again.

"And here I thought it was a _good_ thing he wasn't attacking us," Rika snorted.

"Yes, but I don't understand his motives."

"Answer my question!" Gatomon yelled at the Digimon. Zoe came to stand near Rika, feeling the need to shield herself behind someone now that she couldn't Spirit Evolve. She hated the feeling of helplessness, especially when she could have knocked out this guy easily as Kazemon or Zephyrmon. What a terrible feeling, to have to depend on someone! Maybe she was glad she could turn into a Digimon, and didn't have a partner after all. That way, she could fight her own enemies.

The Digimon still said nothing.

"Kari, come on, don't worry," Sora was saying. "It can't hurt as bad as something like Myotismon, right? This thing's a small fry compared to him!" She didn't want to admit to Kari that they had almost no hope of surviving this without Digimon who could Digivolve. _If I let Kari get hurt, Tai will kill me_, she thought. _Though I'll already be dead in the first place, right?_

"I'll ask you one last time," Gatomon said, claws outstretched. "What do you want with us?"

"Maybe we should just walk away and see what he does?" Biyomon suggested. "Maybe he doesn't want to fight us or anything."

"We can't take that chance," Renamon told her. "We have a chance of being able to beat it if we're prepared, but we can't turn around and run away."

"Gatomon, stop," Kari whispered. "You'll get hurt…"

Gatomon didn't hear. "You leave me no option!" she spat, approaching the huge dragon Digimon. She didn't know if she had any chance of beating it, but she had to try. After all, it was three against one, right? She began to run at the stationary Digimon, and then leapt up, aiming for its neck. "Lightning Paw!" she called, but the Digimon finally moved, lowering its head and letting Gatomon's paw collide with the metal on his head. Gatomon fell back down to the ground, landing on two paws.

"I wouldn't try that again," came a cool voice. The Digimon bowed his head to the ground, and a human emerged from behind its mane. The others gasped. It was a young man, wearing, strangely, a suit and tie. The suit was jet-black, and the tie was the same maroon color as the Digimon's claws. Once he had walked down the Digimon and stood on the ground, the dragon lifted his head again.

"Who are you?" Gatomon asked, stepping back a tiny bit as the man approached her. "Don't come any closer!"

The man simply smiled at her, and Gatomon's eyes widened. His skin was pale and his hair dark and messy. But his eyes… they were a bright blue color, shockingly piercing, yet warm and charming… reassuring. He looked like someone she thought she knew… But she couldn't think of who it was. Renamon appeared next to Gatomon, and Biyomon flew in as well.

"He's just a human," Rika said, a bit relieved. "He must be a Tamer to have a Digimon partner, but he won't do any harm himself."

The Digimon heard her words, but didn't feel so sure – Renamon especially. He didn't feel human. Yet he didn't feel like a Digimon either…

"What an astute observation," he drawled, smirking at the fox Digimon, who stared back at him, surprised. Had he just read her thoughts? He gave her a slight nod, as if affirming the fact.

"Don't be afraid, Kari," he said, looking past the Digimon at the girl shivering on the ground. "I'm not here to harm you."

"What are you here for, then?" Rika demanded.

"Ah, yes… Rika. My namesake." He smiled at her, eyes glittering with amusement.

"And what is _that_ supposed to mean?"

"I am Shinji," he said. "And this is my Digimon partner, DexDorugamon. Please don't be too frightened of him. He may appear rather ferocious, but he's actually quite pleasant. I rescued him from a life of darkness and despair."

"Ugh! That wasn't even one of my questions," Rika growled, annoyed. "Do you have a hearing problem or are you just stupid?"

"It's probably best not to provoke the guy with a big scary Digimon," Zoe squeaked.

"Oh, shut up," Rika groaned. "I've dealt with big scary Digimon before."

"Excuse me?" Zoe asked, annoyed. "Did you just tell me to shut up?"

"I'd advise listening to your friend, actually, Rika," Shinji said. "Zoe seems to be quite intelligent for a human." Zoe looked pleased and smiled proudly at Rika.

"She's not my friend," Rika argued. "And what does that mean, for a human? Are you a Digimon or something?"

"Or something," Shinji answered.

Rika crossed her arms. This guy was infuriating! Almost as bad as Ryo… Thinking of Ryo, she wished he were here. He could talk his way out of anything. But maybe Takato would be a better person to have with her? After all, the gogglehead always carried around his D-Power and cards with him wherever he went.

"Thinking about Takato and Ryo, hmm? Well, don't worry, I'm sure they're thinking about you too," Shinji said with a ruthless smirk.

Rika's face flushed. "Screw you! You have no right to get into my head like that – however you did that! Now shut up and fly away on your big dumb dragon thing or give us some answers!"

"You're so easily angered," Shinji replied coolly. "Your emotions will be your downfall. Though I could say the same for all of you. Your emotions are all so strong, but they only make you weaker."

Sora rubbed Kari's back. "Don't worry, it'll be over soon," she said. "Gatomon, Biyomon, and the fox Digimon will make sure the dark Digimon doesn't attack – and that one girl seems to have it under control. She's like a tough Mimi or something."

Suddenly, Shinji was standing beside Sora and Kari. Their Digimon instantly rushed over and created a barrier between the boy and them. Renamon kept her eyes on DexDorugamon, but once he flew into the sky and landed next to Shinji, she appeared between him and the others as well.

"Please, I'm a friend," he told the three Digimon. "You must be Sora," Shinji said with a smile to the redhead. "The Bearer of Love, right? I guess that's why you're taking care of Kari, isn't it? You love all your friends. You're like a big sister, or a mother to them. And they love you back… Some more than others."

The presence of darkness was so close that Kari's head spun and everything sounded far away. She felt nauseated, and clutched at her stomach. She could hear her heart pounding – it seemed it was in her head, or temples. For a minute, she felt she was back at the Dark Ocean, or going there. Her forearms were wet, and she didn't know why. She forced her eyes open and looked at them. Drops of water were running down her arms, and she slowly realized they were drops of sweat. But she wasn't even warm at all… She was shivering from how cold she felt. What was happening to her?

"Please," Sora said. "You said you wouldn't hurt anyone, but look what your Digimon is doing to her!"

"I apologize for any inconvenience his aura gives you, Kari," Shinji said. "But if you want to get stronger, you must be able to withstand the effect of darkness."

"Tell us why you're here," Rika asked again, calmer this time.

Shinji looked up from Kari and smiled at her. "Certainly, my dear Rika. I am here to ask for your help."

**End of Part I, Chapter 2: Greetings and Salutations**

So? How do you like it so far? I know the storyline is still unexplained, but at least they're in the Digital World now and have met Shinji. Yes I do have plans for what's going to happen, but these can always change, so give me all the suggestions you want and _**REVIEW**_!


	3. I:3: Shinji

And we're up and running with chapter 3, named because I like alliterations! xD

I had no idea so many people would vote for their favorite couplings. But of course if you voted more than once I can only count you one time. ;D And sorry if I didn't make this clear, but the couples in the love triangles are only the ones explicitly suggested in the TV shows/movies. So those are the only ones I'm counting (besides OCs, if enough people want them). Sorry about that… Personally, I like Kouji and Izumi/Zoe together better than Junpei/JP and Izumi/Zoe, but I'm just going by JP's obvious crush on Zoe. I will have some side couples I suppose, but there's no need to vote on them. Most of them will be the canon couples, if that's okay. :3 (for example, Koumi and PataGato? If those are okay with everyone?)

Thank you to all the reviewers from the last chapter: katy007, Frozen Twins, digihope, Triser, Koumi Loccness, su-pa kawaii, Lord Pata, Weirdo, estrella12, Booklover13, senses236, Archles, OversizedBucket, The Illustionest, Super garurumon, Madame Pika, and reccadan. Thanks – you guys are awesome!

Here are the new standings for couples!

Taiora: 7  
Sorato: 2  
Sora/OC: 1  
Daikari: 2  
Takari: 12  
Kari/OC: 2  
Rukato: 4  
Ryuki: 5  
Rika/OC: 1  
Takumi: 6  
Zoe/JP: 0  
Zoe/OC: 1

Wow, Takari and Daikari are definitely not tied anymore. o-o; And poor JP! xD Anyway, here's the chapter!

**The Pyramid of Darkness  
Part I, Chapter 3: Shinji's Supplication**

"You need our _help_?" Rika snorted at Shinji.

Zoe smiled hopefully. "Does this mean you're not going to attack us?"

Shinji laughed. "Of course I won't attack you," he said. "Do I look like the kind to attack? Other than having an undead Digimon, of course. They have such bad reputations…" He glanced at DexDorugamon sympathetically.

"Well you're giving us no reason to help you!" Sora exclaimed. "Maybe if you call off the undead Digimon before Kari passes out we will!"

Shinji frowned and stepped closer to Kari, looking concerned. "Kari… I apologize for the darkness coming from my Digimon. I really do. But you must get stronger if you are to save the dimensions… Darkness is a part of life, no worse than any other part. You have to learn to coexist with it." He sighed. "Even if you decide not to help me, you will thank me for this. Every second you spend with darkness makes you stronger."

"Just tell us what you want help with and _then_ we'll decide if we're going to help or not," Rika said, arms crossed, thinking she probably would help. Her friends made fun of her, calling her 'Mother Teresa' these days. Kazu said that she tried to hide her true self behind her tough façade, but deep down she was just a pushover (naturally, she'd given him a punch in the arm and a threatening warning never to analyze her feelings again). Takato had just laughed and said that she was the nicest one of the bunch – which was stupid, really. Everyone knew that Jeri was the nicest one. Well, Takato liked Jeri, of course, and wouldn't say she was the nicest. Stupid gogglehead. But why was she thinking about him now? Rika glared at Shinji as if he was the cause of all her problems. Thankfully he didn't seem to be reading her mind right now.

"She's not ready for this right now," Gatomon said, pointing her claws at Shinji. "Make your Digimon move back, at least!"

Shinji hesitated, then nodded. "I suppose this must have been painful enough for her," he said sadly. "DexDorugamon, back over there," he ordered, and the undead Digimon quickly complied without a word. Kari didn't seem any better, and Shinji frowned. "I must have his essence on me. I do live with him, after all…"

Gatomon ran back to her partner. "Kari! I know it's hard, but you have to withstand it… You can't let it take you over like I did. Don't give up against it!"

"I'm kind of disinclined to help you when your mere presence is rendering her nearly unconscious," Rika said bitterly. "Now are you going to tell us what you want from us, or not?"

Shinji smiled and appeared next to Rika. "That should give her a break, yes?" he asked. "And I told you, it's not my presence. It's DexDorugamon's essence on me."

Kari's eyes flew open and she gasped for air. Sora and Gatomon both looked on, worried for their friend.

"I am here to ask for your help. You have all helped save your own dimensions of the DigiWorld and Real World before, and now I ask you to do it again – with all the dimensions of this kind," Shinji told them. "The Real-Digi dimensions are in danger of chaos, a power so strong that all the dimensions of this kind will be destroyed. Chaos' power is building right now, so I have called you here to help save the dimensions."

"Wait, what's chaos?" Zoe asked, confused.

"Is that the D-Reaper again?" Rika demanded, eyes wide. "But… how could that be?"

"No, not the D-Reaper," Shinji said with a dismissive shake of his head. "This is a different kind of chaos. It does not stem merely from the Digital World, but from the Real World dimensions as well. It is the force that created all your previous enemies, or at least the force that corrupted them and made them act the way they did."

"Like Cherubimon and Lucemon," Zoe muttered. "So what are we supposed to do about it?" It wasn't like she had her D-Tector with her, or for that matter any of her friends. What was she even doing here? She didn't have a Digimon who would fight for her.

Shinji looked grim. "I admit, it will not be an easy job. I have called you here to help me in uniting the dimensions. Unification will not only make the dimensions easier to protect, but it will also make chaos easier to destroy."

"Unification? Are you serious?" Rika asked, incredulous. "We can't have Digimon running around the Real World! Well, not more than they already do, anyway…"

"Not unification of the Real World and Digital World, but unification of each of the Digital Worlds and each of the Real Worlds. It will not affect either dimension in a serious way – it might make some people confused to see new houses on their street, or the population to suddenly triple in either world, but there are more important matters at stake. Countries will have to work together to support each other, but the unification of all three Real Worlds will mean that their money will triple as well."

"Won't that only create more chaos?" Zoe asked, dubious. It didn't sound very practical.

"I admit, it is a price to pay, but it is either that we surrender all dimensions to the chaos. It's really your choice. I can't do this alone."

"And our job will be…" Rika prompted.

"Kari and Renamon are both able to pass between dimensions without help of a Digivice or anything of that kind. You will need to travel to each of the Real-Digi dimensions and collect the ancient stone of each. These stones provide each dimension with its own lifeforce. Without the stones, the dimensions will not feel any kind of change, but if the stones are collected into one place, they can be used to unite all Real Worlds and all Digital Worlds."

"Ancient stones?" Zoe repeated, squinting at Shinji. "How do we get those?"

"The ones in the Digital World will most likely have Digimon opponents to face. Once you defeat them, you will be able to collect the stone of that dimension. In the Real World, there are usually riddles or puzzles you must solve," Shinji answered. "You may collect them in any order, but there is a bit of a need for hurry… Chaos is growing every day." Shinji looked at each one of them. "I regret asking you for a favor after you've already helped the Digital and Real Worlds so much. But will you help me unite the dimensions and defeat chaos once and for all?"

The four girls and the three Digimon knew that they had to help fight against this evil threat. It wasn't an option to back down, especially if the situation was so dire as Shinji had said.

Kari lifted her head and looked towards Shinji. His deep blue eyes met her ruby-tinted ones, and she gave a slight affirmative nod. "Of course we'll help you," she said. "Well… I will, anyway. I can't speak for anyone else."

"I'll help out however I can," Sora said. "I wouldn't want all our hard work as Digidestined to go to waste!"

"I'm with you," Rika agreed. "The thought of the D-Reaper coming back is not a pleasant one." _Neither is the thought of everything being destroyed…_

Zoe hesitated. She knew she worried about making friends too much, but if she was going to work with these girls, they'd have to get along. And she didn't know if she'd be able to… Then again, she'd been able to work together with Takuya and the others, hadn't she? "I'll do what I can," she said with a smile. "I don't have my spirits anymore, though…"

"I'm sure something can be arranged," Shinji said with a warm smile. "Thank you…"

"Can we… at least go home one more time before we have to stay here?" Rika asked. Her mom and grandma had no idea where she was. She'd made them so worried when she'd gone to the Digital World the first time, even if she had told them where she was going, and she didn't want to make them worry again – though she knew they would.

"Actually, if Kari doesn't mind acting as transportation between dimensions, you can live in whatever dimension you want," Shinji said with a pleasant smile, amused at the girls' happier expressions. "I'll always be here, in this dimension of the Digital World, though. So I'll be able to contact you on your cell phones or email or really on anything that's electronic. But you won't be able to contact me back."

"I doubt we'll need to," Rika sniffed.

"There is one promise you must make to me if you are to help," Shinji said. "You can't tell anyone else you're doing this. Not even your friends or family. Nobody. I know this is a bit of an extreme step, but I'm sure you all know some… well, impulsive people. And they're the sort to ruin plans even if they mean well. Will you all promise this?"

They nodded hesitantly.

Shinji grinned. "Thank you. Please, put your right hand up in the air and say, 'I swear secrecy'."

The four girls obeyed, and a deep purple aura surrounded them for a moment, then vanished only to be sucked into Shinji. Promising secrecy only seemed reasonable. After all, there were people like Tai and Davis and Ryo and Takuya who didn't do very well with secrets or inaction once they knew those secrets.

"Excellent," the boy said. "That is all for today. You'll be hearing from me soon." He gave them a slight bow and strode back towards DexDorugamon, who dipped his head again.

"Wait! That's it?" Rika demanded.

"I wouldn't want to keep you from your birthday," Shinji called over his shoulder as he walked up onto his Digimon partner. "You may have already opened the presents you got earlier, but you still have your party to attend."

Rika put her hands on her hips. "Get out of my head!" Shinji grinned at her mischievously.

"What are we supposed to do now?" Zoe asked.

"Go back home!" Shinji said. He nodded one last time. "Talk to you soon. Let's go, DexDorugamon!" And with that, they both vanished.

"Wait! Get back here!" Rika called. "How are we supposed to get home?"

"Azulongmon's gift," Renamon said. "The girl – Kari – can pass through dimensions. I can too, but just those of the Digital World. She'll have to take you home."

Gatomon shook her head. "Kari's too weak to do anything like that right now," she said. "That stupid dark Digimon messed her all up!"

Kari shook her head. "No, I'm fine," she said. "It's something that's inside me, anyway. I'm sure it'll be easy to do!"

"Well, I guess this is another reason for unification," Zoe said logically. "The sooner we unify the dimensions, the sooner we can make less trips between dimensions after we try to unify… Okay, it made sense in my head."

"You're sure you can handle this?" Sora asked, and Kari nodded with a smile. She sort of thought she'd done it before… But no, that couldn't be. After all, she was only granted the gift today. She dismissed the thought immediately.

"Anyone know how to travel between dimensions?" Biyomon asked.

Renamon nodded. "It's easy if you've been there before, but slightly difficult if you haven't. If that's the case, you have to rely on another's sense of the dimension."

"Take one of them first then," Sora said. "Then you and I can go home last."

"Okay," Kari said, standing up a bit shakily. "Who wants to go first?"

"You go first," Rika said to Zoe.

Zoe nodded with a smile. "Thanks," she said, walking over to Kari. "How do we do this?"

"Join hands," Renamon instructed. "And think of your dimension…"

Zoe and Kari joined hands, and the blonde girl closed her eyes. She thought of her hometown: her house, the mall, and even her school. She thought of the park where she had been before she was sent here, and she thought of the people she had been with. Takuya and JP. She felt the same guilt as before when she thought of them. Poor JP… But he _knew_ she didn't like him, right?

Kari focused on finding the light shining within her, easy to do since it was so bright ever since Azulongmon had given her his gift. She saw the pink light and grasped for it, asking it if she could access its power to bring Zoe back to her own dimension. She didn't think she'd know how to do this, but instinctively she knew what to do. Strange… Maybe… _had_ she actually done this before? But… how could that be?

The next thing Zoe and Kari knew, they were lying in a heap in the grass. They stood up and looked around, and Zoe smiled. "The park!" she exclaimed.

Kari sighed. It hadn't taken much effort to get here, which made her in awe of Azulongmon's power. The only reason she was still so pale and was still breathing so heavily was because of her encounter with DexDorugamon. She was pleased; she'd be able to transport the others as well.

"Zoe? How'd you get, uh, about twenty feet over there in maybe two seconds?" came Takuya's voice from behind them.

Zoe and Kari spun around to see Takuya and JP standing a distance away from them. "Oh no," Kari said, nervous. "Did they see us? What should we do?"

"Just… work with me," Zoe said, dragging Kari over by her wrist. "Sorry about that, guys! I just saw my friend Kari over there and had to go say hi!"

"Hi," Kari said with a smile. Takuya returned the gesture.

But JP wasn't smiling back. "Z, how come you didn't tell me you and Takuya were going on a date?" he asked, his voice serious like she'd never heard it before.

Zoe froze. She was stuck. Her eyes darted between Takuya's and Kari's. Both looked helpless. And she could _not_ meet JP's eyes. Suddenly, a thought occurred to her. "Because that would ruin the surprise, of course!" she said with a confident smile.

"Um… Surprise?" Takuya asked.

"I know you didn't want to spoil it for JP, but Kari's here anyway, so… JP, my friend Kari has been talking about how cute you are, so I arranged a double date! They say those are less awkward for first dates…" Zoe pasted a huge smile on her face.

JP looked at Kari for confirmation, and her shocked expression shifted into a feigned happy-but-embarrassed one. "I was too shy to tell you myself," she explained.

"Well, okay," JP said. "But… You two are still going out?" he asked, looking at Zoe sadly. He reminded her of a big puppy whimpering at her. He was one of her best friends, but she was pretty sure that was all he was to her.

"Yeah, we are," Zoe finally said, a bit dejected her plan hadn't worked. She had to be honest with him, even if she had delayed it with the stupid Kari double date. A lie would just hurt him more. "Our first date is today."

"Um… I should get going," Kari said, slowly backing away. "I have to, you know, do that thing." Vague, but how else to say she was going to transport back to the Digital World only to transport Rika back to her own Real World dimension?

Zoe nodded. "Oh yeah, that thing! Guess I'll… see you later?" For a moment, she wondered what she had gotten herself into. She didn't even _know_ the other girls. But she had to focus on what she was doing right now, which was trying not to hurt JP's feelings too much…

Kari smiled. "Yep! Bye…" She hurried off to find a safe place to disappear.

"Guess I should go too," JP said, not meeting their eyes. "Wouldn't want to be some third wheel or anything. Seeya."

Zoe and Takuya said goodbye and watched their friend walk away. "I feel horrible," Zoe confessed.

"Don't," Takuya said. "He had to know eventually, right? He just has to accept that you don't like him as more than a friend."

Zoe knew he was right, but she still couldn't help feeling like the worst friend in the world.

-x-

A concentrated expression on her still pallid face, Kari appeared beside Sora, making the other girl jump. "That was quick!" the redhead exclaimed. "Does it wear you out to do the transportation?"

Kari shook her head, smiling. "Not at all. And coming back here was really easy." Leave it to Sora to be the mother figure. Kari thought of times when they were younger, like when she was sick and Sora and TK took care of her. Sora was always looking out for everyone, and TK… well, he had always kind of been Kari's protector. When she thought of past experiences with him, or Davis for that matter, she felt a melancholy wistfulness. These days, both TK and Davis were just reminders of their constant war. She shook her head, then looked at Rika. "Your turn?" she asked.

Rika nodded. "Okay," she said. "Renamon… I'll see you next time, okay?" The fox Digimon nodded. Neither of them were very good at saying goodbye… Rika wished Renamon could come with her, but she knew it wasn't a good idea. She consoled herself with the fact that she would see her Digimon friend soon enough, though she wasn't sure if that was necessarily a good thing or not… Given the circumstances, of course.

Kari took Rika's hands and she thought of her own hometown. She saw her house and the park that had served as the hub for the Tamers. She imagined Takato's family bakery, and could almost smell the scent of warm bread… Memories came flooding back to her of the time they had to make their own bread. Takato was such a gogglehead sometimes. But Ryo was the really annoying one, with his arrogance and flirtatiousness.

Rika opened her eyes to see her own room. As soon as she and Kari registered where they were, the door slid open and Jeri ran in. "Rika! Happy birthday!" The girl stopped when she saw Kari. "Oh, hello!"

That was when Rika realized that time really did pass differently in dimensions. It was already time for her party? She hadn't been in the Digital World that long! _And Jeri has horrible timing, as usual_.

"Hi," Kari said, smiling. Jeri's mouth suddenly dropped open and she went running back out of Rika's room.

"Don't ask, cause I don't know," Rika said when Kari looked at her inquisitively. "No offense, but you should probably go before Kazu – "

"KARI?" came a loud voice, and Kazu came running in Rika's room, faster than Rika had ever seen the boy run.

Rika glared at him. "Get out of my room!" she ordered.

Kazu ignored her. "Kari? Is it really you?"

"Um… yes," Kari said, confused. She'd forgotten about the whole TV-show thing.

"Kazu, get _out_!" Rika yelled, shoving him out the door. She glanced back at Kari. "You can leave anytime!" she snapped, and Kari nodded, closed her eyes, and vanished easily. Kazu struggled free of Rika and poked his head back in the room, but much to his dismay Kari was already gone, leaving him scratching his visor.

-x-

When Kari showed up in the Digital World again, it was time for her and Sora to say goodbye to their Digimon until the next time they were needed.

Sora hugged Biyomon. "Don't worry, Biyo. I'll be coming to see you as much as I can. And I'll remember to bring my Digivice next time!"

Biyomon smiled at her. "Sounds like a plan! I haven't Digivolved to Birdramon in awhile… It'll be nice to stretch my wings!"

"I hope you're feeling better," Gatomon said to Kari. "I was so worried… I didn't know what to do."

Kari smiled. "It's okay… I'm fine. Traveling between these dimensions is really easy, especially when I'm going to one I've been to before. And I'll be seeing you a lot now that we're unifying the dimensions, right?" The white cat Digimon nodded, beaming.

Kari and Sora joined hands, and Kari transported them back to their Real World dimension. Sora appeared in the same place she'd been before, walking down the street with Tai and Matt. Kari was nowhere to be seen.

"Like I was saying, soccer is a much better match for Sora than singing," Tai was saying.

Sora looked at the two of them, shocked. Wasn't this… exactly where she'd been before? She hadn't been expecting this. It was just like when she came back from the Digital World for the first time and time hadn't changed.

"But it's way easier to get famous as a singer," Matt challenged.

"No it's not!" Tai countered.

"Yeah it is. Famous singers, let's see. Britney Spears, Kelly Clarkson, Ashley Simpson, Beyonce – "

"Okay, okay," Tai growled. "I get it. But there are tons of famous soccer players too!"

"Name five," Matt said.

"I don't even watch soccer anymore, and when I did, I didn't know their names. But fine… Uh… That guy in _Bend it Like_… Whatever movie that was. I can't remember the last word, but the soccer player was named – "

"The soccer player _is_ the last word. Even I know that," Matt sighed.

"You just know the singers because you like to check out girls! And they're all girls!" Tai looked at Sora, hoping she would hate Matt and never go out with him after this.

Sora couldn't believe this. Not their dumb conversation, but the fact that they hadn't even noticed she'd been gone. There _had_ to have been some sign that she had just hopped dimensions, even if it was just the Digital dust on her clothes!

"You two are unbelievable," she said all of a sudden. "Way to notice anything beyond your own stupid egos!" With this, she stormed away, leaving two very confused boys behind.

_Why did I say that?_ she wondered as soon as she'd turned the corner. She couldn't go back now or they'd think she was crazy, but why had she said it in the first place? For one thing, it hadn't even made sense. And for another, why were they supposed to notice she'd traveled between dimensions anyway?

Maybe she just thought they'd be able to tell. After all, they both always used to know whatever was on her mind. And maybe that was the real thing bothering her – not that they didn't notice, or didn't care, but just that their quest to get closer to Sora was driving them all apart.

-x-

Kari found herself at her empty home – she was the only one who didn't appear in the place she'd been before they'd been sucked out of the dimensions. She was thankful she was so close to her room, and she promptly climbed into bed and fell into a deep sleep, the kind caused by exhaustion: an fatigue caused, surprisingly, not by her inter-dimensional teleporting, but instead by exposure to dark energy.

**End of Part I, Chapter 3: Shinji's Supplication**

How did you like it so far? This chapter explained the plotline, basically, and why they were called to the Digital World. I hope you liked it! If there's anything you don't understand, let me know and I'll try and make it clearer. Anyway, please _**REVIEW**_! 8D


	4. I:4: Reminiscing

Hey everyone! Thank you to everyone who reviewed last chapter: **Lord Pata, KoumiLoccness, The Illustionest, reccadan, Frozen Twins, Depthmon, Darren, wirlpool, Akane Naomi, KickIntoOverdrive101, katy007, Booklover13, Oversized Bucket**, and **Super garurumon**. Have I told you lately that you guys are amazing? xD

I'll answer any questions you guys have asked here...or discuss any issues you brought up...or something. xD

**reccadan:** Sorry, not those specific couples... When I started this story, I gave myself very specific guidelines about the couplings, telling myself it could only be those obviously hinted at, expressed, etc. in the TV show or OCs (like two different extremes, I guess xD). But if you like yuri beyond the couples you said, I'd have no problem making a female OC for... well, whoever. xD

**Frozen Twins: **Ooh, good idea. ;3 There's a scene coming up where that'll fit in perfectly, if you don't mind me using it. Thanks for the idea!

**Oversized Bucket:** Man, look at all the good Zoe-spirit ideas. I'm going to try and have all the Digimon go mega. JetSilphymon, huh? Wonder if she's any relation to Silphymon, Gatomon and Aquilamon's DNA Digivolution... Anyway, thanks!

And as for the pairings so far? Well, there have been a few new votes. ;3 Here they are!

Taiora: 7  
Sorato: 3  
Sora/OC: 1  
Daikari: 2  
Takari: 13  
Kari/OC: 2  
Rukato: 6  
Ryuki: 5  
Rika/OC: 1  
Takumi: 7  
Zoe/JP: 0  
Zoe/OC: 1

Poor JP! Again, no votes! I'm thinking of reviewing my own story just so I can vote for the poor guy. xD Oh well. Majority rules! And speaking of majority, Rukato took over this time... But it's still a close race. Takari has basically killed Daikari, and Taiora is attempting to murder Sorato.

...should I get a job announcing election results or something? xD;

**The Pyramid of Darkness****  
Part I, Chapter 4: Reminiscing**

Sora woke up the next morning feeling a bit strange. She hadn't had very good dreams that night. They were full of the kinds of things Shinji had been telling them. Many of them had people she loved dying because of the chaos, and when she awoke she was scared it would happen. She checked her email as soon as she got up, hoping that she would have a message from Shinji. The sooner they got started in uniting the dimensions, the sooner chaos could be stopped.

But the only email in her inbox was one from Matt. She opened it.

Sor, I meant what I said yesterday about the whole band thing. Okay, you might not want to sing in one of our songs, but I think it'd be cool if you were involved with the band in some way. It's always good to try new things.

_Matt_

_PS: Are you okay? You seemed kind of weird when you left yesterday…_

Why couldn't she go back to the old days, when she was just friends with Matt and Tai? It was so much less complicated back then, where they weren't constantly fighting over her attention. But the thing was, she was scared of losing them. Deep down, she had a secret fear that if she didn't pick one of them soon, she'd lose them both forever. And she didn't think she could choose between the two of them. They were both so important to her.

Sora's phone began ringing after she'd gotten ready and was walking to school. She flipped it open. "Hello?"

"Hey Sora, it's Kari," came the voice on the other side of the phone.

"Kari, hi! I'm just on my way to school… Are you feeling okay from yesterday?" Sora asked, hoping that it was in fact easy for Kari to travel between dimensions. Kari had assured her it was, but… it just didn't seem possible for it to be so simple.

"Oh, I'm fine," Kari replied. "Just a heads up, but I talked to TK and Matt's heading your way. And Tai left early this morning, probably hoping to catch you en route to school."

Sora groaned. "What am I supposed to do, Kari? This is a terrible situation for anyone to be in."

"I know," Kari said, then lowered her voice. "There's a school dance coming up, and I'm deathly afraid one of them will ask me to it. I've been trying to think of things to say, but I have no clue!"

"We can have a girls' night then or something. I'll tell Mimi, and you let Yolei know. That way, you have a good excuse that actually sounds believable." It sounded fun, anyway. They hadn't had any time for just the girls lately – the guys were always hanging around them.

"Thanks," Kari said, relieved. "I just wish we didn't have to keep coming up with excuses."

Sora crossed the street, glancing around for Tai or Matt. But nobody was even around. Good. She could talk about what was really on her mind. "I have a feeling we're going to have to come up with more excuses than usual with this whole unification thing."

Kari sighed. "I know what you mean. I'm already a horrible liar. But we can't tell anyone. We promised."

"Speaking of that, are you feeling any better?" Sora asked.

"Yeah. I slept for a really long time last night, and now it's like DexDorugamon never even existed! I'll be fine. I just need to rebuild an immunity to dark energy with this whole Azulongmon's gift."

"Sora!" came a voice. Tai's.

"Guess my brother's there," Kari groaned.

"Yeah," Sora said, waving halfheartedly to Tai. "I'll talk to you later, okay? We still have more to discuss about… Um, Shinji and everything."

"Agreed. Bye!" They hung up just as Tai reached Sora.

"Who's Shinji?" Tai asked, too curiously. "Someone I know?"

Sora hesitated. "It's just some guy Kari knows. She's having… boy problems." Well, it was all true, even if the two sentences were unrelated. Mimi, the Queen of All Things Sincere, would be so proud of her for telling the truth!

"Yeah? I knew about Davis and TK, but there's another guy? Well, if anyone starts being too much of trouble I'll take care of them." He pounded one fist into his palm.

Sora glanced at him warily. "Well… You know how hard love triangles can be on someone. Especially when they're all friends. That's what it's like for Kari."

Tai remained oblivious, annoyingly. "Yeah, that must suck."

"I mean, think about it. If you were in that situation, what would you do? If you picked one, you'd end up losing the other one as a friend, wouldn't you?"

Tai shrugged. "I guess."

"But if you didn't choose either, you could lose them both." Sora sighed. He wasn't getting it.

Though he was looking at her more closely… "Hey, Sora… Is this something you've experienced?" he asked. "You seem so sad about it."

Sora looked at him hopefully. Was he finally going to realize what he and Matt were doing to her?

"This wouldn't happen to be between Mimi and a certain leader of the Digidestined, would it?" Tai asked with a grin.

Her wide-eyed look turned into a murderous glare. "Shut up, Tai!" He _would_ fake concern only to make some dumb joke. Sometimes she just wanted to strangle him.

"Hey, I was just kidding," Tai said, slinging his arm around Sora. She missed this. If she hadn't known he liked her as more than a friend, the gesture would have been nice. It would be like the old days. "I don't_think_ Mimi likes me, anyway."

Sora elbowed him, shaking her head with a smile she couldn't conceal. "Dummy," she said.

"Uh, should I leave you two alone?" came a voice from behind them. They turned around to see Matt.

"Seeing as Sora just expressed her undying love for me, that might be nice," Tai grinned.

Matt shook his head, chuckling. "I almost believed you before I remembered Sora has good taste."

Sora wished it would stay this way forever. The three of them, just as friends, without any kind of rivalry between the guys. But after Matt's comment now, she knew the whole conversation was about to change.

"Speaking of good taste, you're going to play soccer with me later, right?" Tai asked.

"I thought you wanted to help my band out after school," Matt said.

Just as soon as the old guys had returned, they vanished again. Sora didn't know what to say. She wasn't into soccer anymore, and she'd never been into singing. So what could she say to get out of them both?

"Actually, we're having a girl's night," Sora lied happily.

-x-

Rika had not enjoyed her party the night before, she realized as she lolled on her futon the next morning. But then again why should she have? With a guest list made up of Takato, Ryo, Henry, Jeri, Kazu, Kenta, and Suzie, things were bound to be… interesting.

They had mostly talked about old times together and how much they missed their Digimon now that they weren't allowed to stay very long in the Real World with them. Sometimes they went to the Digital World to help their partners and the sovereigns in rebuilding after the D-Reaper's attack, but they never really had much time anymore… Takato was taking art classes after school, Henry had immersed himself in his martial arts training, Jeri now had a part-time job at her father's restaurant, Kazu and Kenta spent too much of their time trying to beat Rika and Ryo at playing the Digimon card game, and Suzie was still too little to go on her own. And as for Rika and Ryo? Their prestigious private school had a rigorous workload, and on top of that, Rika played soccer and Ryo worked for the school newspaper as a reporter and a photographer. Needless to say, they didn't get to the Digital World much anymore.

Rika turned over on her futon to face the door. She'd already received Ryo's present at school, and Takato had given her his when she stopped by his parents' bread shop. But all the others had gifts to give. Kazu and Kenta had given her two of their worst cards, and Suzie's present was a pink bow. Yet Henry and Jeri's presents were surprisingly thoughtful. Henry had gotten a gift for Rika and Renamon to share: a yin-and-yang friendship necklace that split into two halves. Rika wasn't sure if she'd keep the yin or the yang side, but figured Renamon would probably know better. And Jeri had knitted her a purple sweater – okay, not really Rika's style, but it was still nice.

Her face flushed a tiny bit as she remembered opening those two presents.

"Is that some kind of corny couple thing?" Ryo asked as Rika looked at Henry's present. "Are you guys going out or something?"

_Henry laughed. "No, it's for her and Renamon. It's a friendship necklace."_

"_Thanks, Henry…" Rika said, genuinely. "I'll give one half to her the next time I see her." She was pretty sure it would be soon..._

"_Open mine! Open mine!" Jeri shrieked, and Rika did so, pulling out the glittery purple sweater._

"_Wow… Um, thanks, Jeri," Rika managed. It was a nice sweater, just… Not a Rika sweater._

"_It matches your eyes," Takato remarked as Rika held the sweater up to herself politely, appreciating Jeri's gift though not really knowing if she'd ever wear it._

"_And the necklace I gave you," Ryo said, butting in. "Did you like it, by the way?"_

_Rika did like it, but this was Ryo. "It's okay. Kinda girly for me though. Henry's necklace is much better."_

_Ryo shrugged, smiling at her as if he didn't care. Ugh, he was infuriating! Did he really not care? Or did he know that she was lying?_

"_Ryo got you a necklace, Rika?" Jeri gasped. "Let me see!"_

_Rika shook her head. "My mom took it to the jewelry store… Hopefully she's returning it," she said with a glare at Ryo. Okay, so her mom was really taking the necklace there to get a pair of matching earrings for Rika's birthday – she had somehow overlooked the fact that Rika's ears weren't pierced._

"_Not your style, pumpkin?" Ryo asked with a grin. "Oh well, I tried. What did you get her, Takato?" he asked, glancing at the gogglehead with cool blue eyes._

_Takato's face turned red. "I, um, drew a portrait of her."_

_Kazu burst out laughing, and Kenta followed._

"_Come on, guys, don't laugh. That sounds, uh, sweet," Ryo said. "Though not as good as my necklace, right Rika?"_

_Rika just glared back at him. "Actually, I hung it on my wall. Takato's a good artist, and at least he worked hard on it. Unlike some people, who just picked out the first thing they saw and bought it with Daddy's plastic." She didn't know why she was being like this to him. She did like the necklace, she really did._

"_Um… Who wants cake?" Henry asked, and Suzie jumped up enthusiastically and began running in circles._

The sound of her phone vibrating on the floor snapped Rika out of her memory of the night before. She glanced down at the phone to see Ryo was calling. Ugh – he always seemed to know when she was thinking about him. Not like it was very often or anything.

"I'm not going to answer you," she told her phone decisively. "I'm really not. Stop ringing. Or vibrating." It didn't listen. "I'm not going to answer you!"

Rika glared at her phone, which wouldn't shut up. "Not going to answer… not going to answer… not going to – _What_?" she yelled into the phone, grabbing it and flipping it open. Then she sighed at herself. "Damn."

"Hey Rika," came Ryo's voice.

"What do you want, Ryo," Rika said flatly. Usually she wasn't so annoyed with him, but lately she couldn't help it.

"I know you still hate me for giving you an expensive silver and amethyst necklace, but it's Saturday," Ryo said. He didn't sound any more pleased than her about the conversation, which made her even more irritated. What reason did _he_ have to be pissed off with her? She hadn't done anything. Then again, what had he done? She dismissed the thought. He was just _annoying_.

"I know my days of the week. Yes, it's Saturday. And…?"

"I seem to remember you promising that we could go get some community service hours in today. Seeing as we have to have ten hours by next Monday. As in… a week and two days?"

"Oh crap." She'd forgotten. "Why didn't you remind me last night?! Where are we going to meet? I'm not even dressed yet!"

"I'll be by your house in ten," he said, then hung up.

"_Bye_," Rika growled, knowing that he was already off the phone. She slammed it closed and jumped up to find clothes. Ryo was the most irritating person she'd ever met in her entire life!

-x-

Back in another dimension of the Real World, Kari was sitting in PE class with her best friend Yolei. They were sprawled on the last bleacher, staring at the two captains of today's floor hockey team: none other than TK and Davis.

"They both want you so much," Yolei noted.

"What?!" Kari asked, eyes wide.

Yolei glanced at her strangely. "On their _team_, Kari." She hesitated. "Though of course they both _want_ you want you too."

Kari shook her head. "This is getting so tiresome. What should I do?"

"Pick one!" Yolei said immediately. "Oh, I'm so glad the time has come for you to pick one of them, and you know you have my full support in your decision. As long as you pick TK."

Kari sighed. "I can't just pick one! Then the other one will be sad! Or am I just thinking that they like me so much that they'll be sad if I reject them? I guess I don't see why they'd like me at all, so – "

"Kari. Shut up. _Yes_, they like you so much that if you rejected them, they would be sad. But haven't you ever thought that maybe choosing neither is making them _both_ sad? If you picked one, only one would be upset instead of both. And this way, they'll stop their stupid competition over you and things can be normal. Besides, Davis will get over you."

"I… never thought of that before," Kari said, blinking. It _was_ hurting them both, wasn't it? But still… she didn't know if she'd be able to pick, no matter how much Yolei was in favor of TK.

"Look, this is not something you are ever allowed to tell Davis. _Ever_. But he's cute. Seriously. Okay, not as cute as TK. And if cuteness was measured in water, then Davis would be one droplet and Ken would be all the oceans in the world, plus Neptune, which is the planet made up of all water."

"Actually, it's just named after the Roman god _of_ water," Kari said. "It's not full of water."

"Well, whatever water-filled planet there is!" Yolei cried. "That's not the point. The point is, they're both cute guys. You are very lucky to have two cute guys fighting over you. Sadly, I enjoy no such luck. Instead, I have to beat girls off Ken, and even then he doesn't realize how pure and wonderful our love is. In conclusion, you're lucky to have them fighting over you, and they're both cute, so you can pick one without fear that the other one will never get another chance to be with a girl again. Well, not too much fear, anyway."

"But… You said you wanted me to pick TK. And if I went out with the one who is less likely to ever get a girl to like him, I should go out with Davis, not TK – "

"YOU THINK TK IS CUTER THAN DAVIS?" Yolei yelled, mouth dropping wide open. Everyone in the gym turned to look at them. Including TK and Davis.

"That's just what you said!" Kari said quickly. "That's just what she said," she called to everyone else, face red.

"Poor Yolei. Always wrong!" Davis yelled back.

Kari leaned back to rest on the wall. "This is so complicated," she said. She tried to think back. When had it gotten so out of hand? She'd kind of liked it before, when they were in the Digital World and were fighting the Emperor. And after Ken joined them, Davis had seemed to mature. Kari had really thought he seemed older during their last battle, when he rescued them all from their illusions. But it seemed this was quickly washed away again, and Davis continued his obsession with her soon after. She'd never really known that TK liked her until that time he told her, right before she was taken to the Dark Ocean for the first time… Before then, she had almost used him just to make Davis jealous – but why? It had seemed fun at the time, she supposed. But it seemed like such a selfish, horrible thing to do now. After she'd found out TK's true feelings, she… well, she changed a little bit. As much as she didn't want to admit it, she took TK a lot more seriously than Davis. And that went for their feelings, too. She'd felt it was okay to mess with Davis, because his feelings couldn't be very deep, right? But not TK's. His had to be purer.

But… why? She'd stopped putting them at odds with each other once she'd found out how TK felt. But she'd known how Davis felt all along. So… why did she feel like it was okay to make Davis jealous, but not TK? That… wasn't fair.

"We got the teams!" TK announced, startling her out of her memories. The two captains stepped forward.

"We compromised to the best of our ability, and hope that these teams are fair and whatever," Davis said. "On my team is Kari – "

"Wait, I picked Kari," TK said. "We talked about this!"

"I know! And I got Kari!" Davis argued. "She's on my team!"

"No, you definitely said I could have Kari."

"No way!"

"Yes way!"

Yolei looked at Kari. "Told you they wanted you."

"I… I can't play!" Kari suddenly exclaimed. "I have… a cold. I have to sit out."

"I'll take care of her!" Davis cried.

"You'd just end up killing her," TK said. "I'll take care of her! I've always been good at taking care of Kari when she's sick."

"Stop it, both of you!" the PE teacher yelled. "You're both playing. Kari can take care of herself."

Yolei snorted. "Nice one," she said, snickering. Then she stopped laughing. "Wait. That means I can't sit out!" She glared at Kari. "I can't believe you're making me do PE." Their teacher only let one student sit out per day.

"This was kind of an emergency," Kari said, feeling sorry for her very unathletic friend. "It's just floor hockey. It's fun."

Yolei just stared at Kari with contempt. "It better be."

-x-

Zoe was enjoying her Sunday morning by writing a Sincere and Apologetic email to JP.

_JP, I'm sorry about yesterday_.

That was as far as she'd gotten. The blinking cursor flashed on and off. She glared at it. It was just trying to annoy her and tell her she was doing a terrible job of things. No, the Sincere and Apologetic email wasn't going very well.

Unlike her date with Takuya yesterday. She sat back in her chair, a dreamy look overtaking her eyes. It had been just as perfect as she'd thought it would be. Well, okay, there was no chariot or roses or anything. But it wasn't anything like her last date, one she'd had in Italy before she moved back to Japan. Her date had taken her to McDonald's and then they'd gone to see some stupid movie that featured about fifty half-naked women with implants. Naturally, there was no second date.

Last night was much different. After the… unpleasantness with JP, they'd gone to an Italian restaurant Zoe had never even heard of. There weren't very many Italian restaurants around, but Takuya had said that she'd kept talking about how much she wanted Italian food lately. He was so sweet… Takuya hadn't really known what to order, but Zoe had guided him through the menu and he'd ended up loving his fettuccini alfredo.

After dinner, they'd gone to a movie. But this time, Zoe actually knew what movies were playing – she'd checked in advance so she wouldn't have to suffer through another hour-and-twenty-minute waste of film. Much to her delight, the theater was playing old movies that weekend. She and Takuya had realized their obsession with Star Wars and had spent the walk home reciting lines and laughing at their bad impressions. Her last date had tried to kiss her after walking her home, and Zoe had just ducked away, repulsed. Takuya didn't try, and Zoe wasn't sure if she was glad or not. She decided she was glad, and therefore her date had been perfect.

Her smile slid off her face as she remembered what she was supposed to be doing.

Was there some sort of law that said for one person to be happy, someone else had to be sad? Was it some kind of exchange or something? Because Zoe realized that the whole time she and Takuya had been out having fun, JP had probably been all alone. How would she feel if she found out Takuya was going out with another girl, and had kept it from her?

She'd feel pretty terrible. A wave of guilt washed over her. Poor JP!

She began typing furiously, hoping it would make the lump in her throat go away.

JP, I'm sorry about yesterday. Mostly, I'm sorry about keeping you in the dark about Takuya and me. But yesterday was really the first time we went out, and we were going to tell you soon. We hadn't told anyone else yet, so please don't feel like we were intentionally excluding you.

She hesitated. Okay, they kind of were intentionally excluding him. But that was only because they didn't want him to get hurt!

We just didn't want to make you upset. We both know how you feel about me.

Okay, now she sounded cocky. But it was true! He made it so obvious, how could she not know?

_Takuya and I are both really sorry, and we hope that you can forgive us. We are both willing to beg and plead for our dear friend JP's forgiveness. _

Love, Zoe 

…Love? Ugh. She deleted it and left just her name instead. She didn't want him to get the wrong idea after all that.

Zoe quickly swept her eyes over the email, and clicked 'send' before she could change her mind. She bit her lip, hoping he would forgive her. She felt terrible about this now that she wasn't having so much fun with Takuya. That had distracted her from the guilt. But now it came over her, and she wondered how she could have overlooked it the night before. She was _horrible_.

An instant message suddenly popped up, and Zoe realized she had signed on somewhere along the line, without knowing she had. It was Koichi, and Zoe smiled. He was always a good person to talk to. They'd grown to be friends in the Digital World and became even closer once they came back home.

**YinTwin3: **Hey Zoe.

**fatadivento: **Hi Koichi!

**YinTwin3:** I just talked to JP – he's really upset.

Zoe froze. Great, Koichi was just instant messaging her to lecture her about being a bad friend. This coming from someone who tried to murder his own twin brother! Zoe glared at the IM window. Who was Koichi to judge her?

**fatadivento: **Really?

**fatadivento: **Oh crap, I gotta go. Sorry! Bye!

She signed off quickly, before Koichi could respond. Okay, so that was not subtle at all. But she didn't care. Obviously Koichi wasn't the one to talk to about this. So who was? Takuya already knew what had happened and was biased anyway. He didn't seem to care about JP's feelings much, or maybe he was right and the boy just needed to realize he'd been rejected and get over it. She couldn't talk to Tommy, he was too young to throw all these problems on. He wouldn't understand and would just tell her to be friends with everyone. It wasn't that simple. So Koji was the only one left. And he didn't strike Zoe as the kind of person who would tolerate listening to this. Besides, it wasn't like he was that great with relationships either.

Zoe sighed. After getting back from the Digital World, she had tried to make friends. It had worked, to some degree. But she was still closer with the others who had gone with her. Takuya and Koji were in her class now at school, and JP was just a year older. Tommy and Koichi didn't go to their school, but they still kept in contact.

Zoe mostly hung out with the guys in her class, and didn't make many friends who were girls. It wasn't that she didn't like them, it was just that she was more comfortable with the people she already knew. She had some acquaintances, but none of them were really close friends.

She couldn't help but wish she had more girls as friends for times like these. After all, it wasn't like she could talk about her boy problems with boys.

Zoe bit down on her nail and stared at her email inbox. She hoped JP would write back soon. She hated feeling like she had a guilty conscience.

**End of Part I, Chapter 4: Reminiscing**

Soo... that's the chapter! Hoped you liked it. I'm trying to have lots of scenes where they're at home, to show that it's a mixture between adventure and... being at home. Or something. xD; Anyway, _**PLEASE REVIEW!!!**_ Seeya next time!**  
**


	5. I:5: Messages

Hey everyone! Here's chapter five. I hope all you guys in the US have a fun Thanksgiving tomorrow! ;3 Or, uh, all you guys everywhere. If you feel like celebrating it. Or something. o-o; Erm… anyway.

Thank you to the consistently amazing reviewers!: **LordPata, Depthmon, KoumiLoccness, 5x5shadow5x5, Booklover13, Takuya Fan, Akane Naomi, Oversized Bucket, Samuramon, xXxRukato4EverXxX, The Illustionest, Helena Pi Myths, kayono, Super garurumon, **and **stardreamer87**.

To any specific concerns/questions/whatever xD:

**KoumiLoccness:** I was actually surprised to see that Taiora is more popular than Sorato too (at least among the readers of this fic)… I definitely thought Sorato was, but oh well… And hopefully I can put some Koumi in this story soon. ;3 The girls' night is coming up, so… yeah. xD

**Oversized Bucket:**Thanks! I was so excited to see this fic hit 50 reviews… It's a new record for me considering the number of chapters. I decided not to do the Koumi/Jyoumi triangle because I only wanted to do one from each season and I thought the Taiora/Sorato one was bigger or more established or something. And yay, a vote for JP! I think I guilted people into voting for JP. Oh well. xD

**Helena Pi Myths:** Thanks for all your praise! ;D I'm glad you like it so far. I had a pretty hard time deciding the Tamers triangle. x-x; I finally decided to use Takato-Rika-Ryo because I couldn't think of anyone else who would go with Takato and Jeri, and there had been those random awkward moments between Takato and Rika that were slightly romantic. xD But I'll try and include Jeri more! Thanks for reminding me. ;3

**kayono:** I thought so too. Meaning that I was probably focusing too much on their ordinary lives as opposed to saving the universe. Like Zoe, for instance… IMing when she's supposed to be saving the dimensions? Yeah, I had some problems with that. xD But I figured that, to have the best balance between the adventure and the romance, I'd have to make sure they weren't spazzing about the worlds ending soon. And the trilogy you mentioned sounds interesting… I've never heard of it, but I'll have to check it out! I love stuff like that (which is why I write about it xD)!

**stardreamer87:** Just a quick question: if you're for Takato/Jeri, does that mean you're voting for Ryuki?

Ahh, and now the new stats for couplings. I don't actually know when the voting will be closed. If ever. xD

Taiora: 11  
Sorato: 4  
Sora/OC: 1  
Daikari: 4  
Takari: 17  
Kari/OC: 2  
Rukato: 9  
Ryuki: 7  
Rika/OC: 1  
Takumi: 10  
Zoe/JP: 3  
Zoe/OC: 1

Hooray for Zoe and JP! xD And onto the fic!

**The Pyramid of Darkness  
Part I, Chapter 5: Messages**

Kari sat in the bleachers in the gym, watching the floor hockey game and sniffling every so often so as not to be suspicious.

Poor Yolei. Kari felt terrible for her friend. Yolei was simply awful at most sports. She wasn't coordinated at all, and every time the squishy ball used for field and floor hockey came to her, she couldn't really do anything about it. Most of the time, the ball just rolled past her, often into the goal. Their teacher didn't let anyone play as goalies – he said that he wanted everyone to get the same amount of exercise, and apparently being a goalie wasn't cardiovascular enough.

TK had just gotten the ball past Yolei and made a quick slapshot into the goal. The lavender-haired girl turned to glare at Kari menacingly, and she felt even worse. Their teacher only let one student sit out per game, and it was almost always Yolei. It was the first time all year Kari hadn't played.

"Can we get some actual defense here please?" Davis groaned. "Yolei, you suck!"

TK ran by Davis. "It's not her fault your team stinks," he told him with a grin.

Davis could only glare at the blonde boy. "If only this was soccer, TS, I would have your butt kicked in no time!"

"Stop getting his name wrong, stupid!" Yolei yelled at Davis. "That's so old."

"_You're_ so old, Yolei! You act like an old lady who can barely move down there. If only _Kari_ was playing, she'd be a good defenseman!"

"Defense_woman_!" Yolei shot back. "You and your stupid sexist… life!"

"I know you are, but what am I?" Davis shot back proudly.

Kari hid her head in her hands. Why did every PE class end up like this? Yolei and Davis couldn't stand each other, and Davis the athlete loved to rub it in Yolei the non-athlete's face that she was terrible at sports.

"Hey, come on, let's_play_," TK called. Kari peeked out to watch the game. Davis and TK were standing in the middle of the floor, the ball between them.

"This'll impress Kari!" Davis exclaimed, trying to get the ball past TK. Unfortunately, the taller boy easily stole it from him with his hockey stick.

"Don't be so sure," TK laughed, taking the ball past him.

Davis raced after him. "YOLEI! You better block his shot or I swear – "

Everything next happened all at once. Yolei timidly – though that was not an adverb applied much to Yolei – moved towards TK, trying to block him. Davis was gaining on TK, but his shoe slid on the newly waxed floor and he slipped, falling into the blonde boy in front of him. TK fell with the weight of Davis on him and let go of his stick, which went flying forward to collide with Yolei. TK fell at her feet, his chin banging against the ground with a painful thudding noise. Except Yolei wasn't on her feet much longer. The impact of the stick had knocked her over, and she fell on her butt, her stick falling next to her with a clatter. The ball sailed innocently on, but a collision with Yolei's stick forced it to stop and go rolling back the other way at a slower pace.

Kari's eyes widened. "Are you okay?" she called, but they were all getting back up.

Yolei raised her stick in the air and ran in circles. "YES! I blocked the ball, Davis!" she shouted mockingly. "I might have almost died from it, but I blocked it! I blocked a goal and you can't even run! Who's the athlete _now_?"

Davis just glared at her and raced after the ball. TK rubbed his chin, wincing, but decided he was more concerned with Davis making a goal and ran after him.

Kari leaned back against the wall again, relieved. Nobody had been hurt. Suddenly, she heard a beeping sound coming from her pink backpack. Glancing around and seeing that not only was the PE teacher not looking at her, but wasn't even in the _room_, she hoisted the bag into her lap and opened it. Her shimmery pink phone was beeping at her – but Kari put her phone on silent every day when she went to school. Puzzled, she looked at it. She had a new text message. She opened it and read what it said.

_Get the others and come to the Digital World, your dimension, now. Your place of appearance doesn't matter – I'll find you. Shinji._

Kari gasped. It was only the next day and they were already being contacted! She looked at the number curiously, but it only said '0101010'. As far as she knew, that wasn't a number. Not that that was important right now. She needed to find Sora! But it would probably take more time to go to Sora's school than getting one of the other girls first and transporting back to find Sora. She jumped up, slung her backpack on, and hurried down the bleachers.

"Where are you going?" Yolei asked bitterly, seeing Kari leave. "To _hell_?"

"Kind of! To the bathroom!" Kari called back, rushing away. Once she had made it in the bathroom, she closed her eyes. _I need to get to… Zoe. Take me to Zoe._

-x-

Zoe was staring at her inbox, willing JP to write back, when an instant message popped up. She blinked. Hadn't she signed off? She sighed, hoping it wasn't Koichi, and read the IM.

**0101010:** This is Shinji. Kari should be coming to get you and the others soon. You are needed in the Digital World.

Zoe gasped. Already? After reading it a few times, she tried typing back.

**fatadivento: **Should I bring my D-Tector?  
**Error: You are not logged in.**

Zoe glared at the screen. It must be mocking her or something – how could Shinji send her an IM if she wasn't logged in? But, sure enough, she checked the program and she wasn't. She quickly signed in and typed the message over again as fast as she could.

**fatadivento: **should I bing my d-tector?

She reminded herself not to type that fast again or everyone would think she was completely stupid.

**Error: There is no user by that name.**

Zoe banged her head against the keyboard just as her computer chimed. She looked up to see a new instant message window, and to see that she'd just typed a new message with her head and had sent it.

**YinTwin3:** Zoe, are you back? Can we talk now?  
**fatadivento:**gjfjfksammsa  
**YinTwin3:** Um… Zoe?

Zoe collapsed. Why did computers hate her so much? And what was she supposed to say now? 'Sorry for going crazy for two seconds there? Sorry you're in love with JP and he hates me now?' She glanced at her other window and bit her lip, thinking fast.

**fatadivento:** Error: You are not logged in.  
**YinTwin3:** Yes I am. Zoe, please talk to me.

Zoe narrowed her eyes. He wasn't falling for it! And it had been so believable, too!

**fatadivento: **Sorry, I can't now. I have to

Zoe accidentally hit the 'enter' button, startled, as Kari appeared in her room. Zoe nearly screamed, despite Shinji's warning that Kari was coming soon.

Kari opened her eyes – Zoe couldn't help but think they were very unnerving, a deep red color – and gave Zoe a small smile. "Hi, Zoe," she said. "Are you ready to go? I thought we should head back to my dimension and pick up Sora, then go get… um, Rika. Is that okay?"

Zoe nodded, heart still beating quickly. "I just need an excuse to leave really fast. Do you have one?" she pleaded.

Kari blinked. "You could say you have a cold. That one's been working for me lately. Or a girl's night. That one always works. Except to your girlfriends."

Zoe looked back at her computer, then started typing.

**YinTwin3:** Have to what?  
**YinTwin3:** Zoe?  
**fatadivento: **I have to go to the doctor's for my cold, and then I'm having a girl's night! Bye bye!  
**YinTwin3:** Um… bye…

Zoe logged off quickly and sighed with relief. Then she smiled at Kari. "Okay, all taken care of! I've got my D-Tector, just in case."

"I have my D-3 too," Kari said. "So, shall we?"

Zoe nodded and they joined hands. Kari closed her eyes. _We need to get to Sora…_

-x-

Sora wished she could hit herself over the head right now, but she would have looked insane.

Why was physics so difficult?

_Come on, come on… You can do this. The equation for average velocity is not that hard of an equation. Do you really not know it?_

Sora tapped her pencil on her desk and glanced around. Everyone else was dutifully scribbling on their tests. Even Tai, who hated science and who Sora sometimes helped in physics, was looking thoughtful as he wrote.

She glanced at her calculator, hoping it would help. She was kind of in love with her calculator because it was better than all the others in the world, and did her work for her. Sora had never really memorized the multiplication table, so her trusty calculator was very helpful. It was a scientific graphing calculator and had cost a fortune, but Izzy made all his friends buy them. Sora was glad she had one now. Her computer geek friend had even installed games on it for her to play. Sadly, it was not time for playing games now. Instead, it was time to remember the stupid formula for average velocity!

_Distance over time, stupid!_

Sora grinned and began ferociously punching numbers into her calculator. But when she got the answer and looked at it, just about to write it down, the screen went blank.

_Oh no! Did I run out of batteries?_

Sora was about to panic, knowing she couldn't do these problems without a calculator no matter _how_ easy their teacher said they were, but then saw that letters were appearing on her calculator. They were being typed in as if she was doing them herself.

There was a function on her calculator that allowed for letters to be keyed in. But there was none for letters to magically appear on the screen… And what were they saying? Sora was shocked as she realized it wasn't just random letters… It was a _message_.

_THIS IS SHINJI. KARI WILL COME TO GET YOU AND THE OTHERS SOON. YOU ARE NEEDED IN THE DIGITAL WORLD._

Kari couldn't just appear in her physics classroom! Sora glanced around and thought fast. She got up and hurried to the teacher's desk, holding her test in front of her like a white flag. "Um, I feel really sick," she told her teacher.

Thankfully, every one of her teachers loved Sora. Her physics professor frowned. "Oh, no! You should go straight home, Sora. There's a fever going around, and you should get home before you get any worse."

"But what about the test?" Sora asked in a concerned voice, the image of a perfect student.

"Oh, don't worry about that! Give me what you've done, and you can do the rest another time. Really, Sora, your health is more important than your studies. You must prioritize. Now go home and feel better."

"Thank you," Sora said graciously. "Goodbye!" She walked down the hall, past a bewildered Tai, and to the door.

"I feel sick too!" Tai yelled as Sora was exiting.

"Oh, shut up, Taichi," the teacher spat.

A smile played across Sora's face as she hurried into the nearest girl's bathroom. She checked the stalls – nobody! How lucky! As soon as she turned around the face the sinks, two girls appeared next to her: Kari and Zoe.

Sora smiled and waved at them. "Hello! What good timing; I just got here."

"We have to hurry," Kari said with a smile. "Do you have your Digivice?"

Sora patted her messenger bag. "Luckily, I'm prepared this time. It's in here."

All three girls joined hands. "We're going to get Rika now," Kari said. "Hopefully this works with three people – I just thought it would be faster than doing one at a time…"

"I don't see why it wouldn't work," Zoe assured her. "You're using that big dragon guy's power, and he was the one who carried us all into the Digital World."

Kari nodded, then closed her eyes. _Rika…_

-x-

"You pick it up."

"No way, _you_ pick it up."

"Nope. It's yours."

"It's your dog!"

"No, I'm just walking it. You pick it up. Come on. Be a gentleman. Isn't that your thing or something?" Rika tried to reason with Ryo. They were walking four dogs as volunteers for the local animal shelter. Rika had picked out the littlest dogs, but sadly enough they had the most poop. They stood over the yapping Chihuahua's pile right now.

"Not anymore."

"Since when?"

"Since you stopped caring."

Rika glared at him. "I have no idea what that means. But you are picking it up. If you don't do it, I'll pick it up, but I'll shove it in your face. Do you really want that to happen?"

"Everyone knows you're all talk," Ryo said. Normally he would have said this with an amused smile, the kind he always got when he talked to Rika, but now he was expressionless.

"What is _wrong_ with you today?" Rika finally demanded. He'd been acting like this all day. He'd seemed a little upset near the end of her party, too.

"Oh, like you care."

"What is that supposed to mean? Why do you keep talking about me and my… _caring_ abilities?"

"You mean inabilities," Ryo said bitterly.

Rika crossed her arms, a bit difficult because of the dog leashes in each hand. "Okay, what the hell is going on here? You've been acting like a stupid spoiled baby all day."

"Ah, spoiled. Yep, that's me. The spoiled little rich boy."

"Stop sulking. Why are you sulking?" Rika asked.

"I'm _not_ sulking," Ryo sulked.

"Shut up. Yes you are. Now tell me what's going on."

Ryo sighed. "Rika, did anyone ever tell you that you're way too stubborn?"

"Of course," Rika replied. "I just stubbornly argued that they were wrong until they gave up. So if you don't tell me now why you're acting like a pile of Chihuahua poop, then I'll just keep asking until I get it out of you somehow."

"I'm only acting the way I am in response to the way _you've_ been acting," Ryo said.

"What? Explain."

"You're a lot nicer to everyone else. It's like you're letting them get closer to you, which is great and everything. But it's like you're pushing me away at the same time, keeping me so that I can't get close to you," Ryo told her, looking down as if he was embarrassed to tell her what was on his mind.

"No I'm not."

"Yes you are."

"How?"

"Jeri gave you a sweater. You hate sweaters. But you said how much you liked it. In the old days, you wouldn't have cared about hurting her feelings. But now you do. And you hated my present, which I could see you wearing a lot sooner than a sparkly purple sweater."

"Jeri _made_ that sweater, Ryo. You just – "

"And that's the other thing. You just… _judge_ me, and shove me under a label, like I'm not worthy of having my own personality or something."

"Don't interrupt me!" Rika snapped. Then she hesitated. "When have I done that?"

"At your party. You think that I'm this superficial, stereotypical rich boy. I think your exact words were that I 'picked out the first thing I saw and bought it with Daddy's plastic'."

"Well, so what?" Rika responded. "That's the truth, right? So what's wrong with saying it?"

"_No_, it's not the truth. I was going to tell you, but you never let me tell you where I _got_ that necklace." Ryo paused. "It was my mom's," he said, a bit softer.

Rika froze. Ryo had given her his dead mother's necklace? Oh god – she was _horrible_. Completely horrible. She'd said such terrible things about it and him, thinking that he'd pulled a typical rich guy move and bought her some meaningless trinket. But it was his mother's… He had confided in her about his mother before, and what she was like, and how much he missed her. It was a side of him Rika had never seen before.

_How would you feel if you gave someone something precious of your father's, and they said such mean things about it? _she asked herself. Okay, it wasn't the same thing, since she was still angry with her father for leaving her and her mother. He'd meant to do it, but Ryo's mother couldn't help but leave. Yet she knew she would still feel like crap if someone insulted something, anything of her father's. It must be much worse for Ryo to hear those things…

Rika didn't know what to say. They were both silent, though Rika's Chihuahua was yipping, and Ryo's dogs were busy winding their leashes around his legs. Suddenly, Rika's phone rang. It would give her more time to think of something to say and would break the heavy, awkward tension in the air if she answered it, so she did.

"Hello?" she said as she answered.

"_Rika, it's Shinji. I hope your birthday was enjoyable. Kari will come to get you soon. You are needed in the Digital World_," came Shinji's voice from the other end.

"What? Right _now_?" Rika demanded, turning away from Ryo.

There was silence on the other end.

"Hello? Shinji?" He wasn't replying, and Rika grew impatient. "Shinji? Talk to me, stupid!" But there was only silence, and Rika snapped her phone closed and turned around to face Ryo, instantly remembering about his mother's necklace and softening a bit. But she had to get out of here if Kari was appearing to transport her soon. Ryo couldn't know…

"I have to go," Rika told him quietly, not able to look him in the face. "Can you take my dogs… please?"

"Where are you going?" Ryo asked, voice soft. He stared at the pile of dog poop, looking rather apathetic, but also kind of like a lost puppy.

"My mom needs me to come home right now," she lied. "Sorry." She thrust her dog leashes into his hands. "I'll talk to you later, okay? Bye." She hurried away, feeling even worse leaving him standing there.

"I had no idea your mother's name was Shinji," Ryo said lightly, but only the dogs heard.

Rika had just hidden herself behind a large bush – the only hiding place in sight – when Kari, Sora, and Zoe appeared right next to her.

"Hi, Rika!" Sora said. "I take it you got Shinji's message?"

Rika nodded silently, still feeling bad about Ryo. Then she closed her eyes. It wasn't time for remorseful Rika, it was time for kickass Rika.

"Ready?" Kari asked, holding out her hand.

Rika stood up and took her hand and Sora's. "Always," she said.

Kari closed her eyes and transported them to the Digital World.

**End of Part I, Chapter 5: Messages**

That's it for this chapter. I hoped you liked it, even if it was a bit uneventful! And please _**REVIEW!!!  
**_


	6. I:6: First Mission

Hi everyone. Sorry I've been kind of bad at updating recently, but I've been experiencing some… erm, family drama. Nothing too bad, but. You know. Time consuming. It's all pretty much cleared up now, so I'll try to start updating more again! Hooray. x3

Anyway, onto the amazing reviewers. This story hit 72 reviews in only 5 chapters! That's kind of insane, in a good way. And I couldn't have done it without all of you (both a cliché saying AND an obvious one… sigh). Seriously, though, thank you guys so much for reading and reviewing the story this far.

The reviewers from last chapter are: **Akane Naomi, Lord Pata, mel92, Booklover13, the evil sound ninja, fangsangel, Oversized Bucket, Sacred Sakura**,**The Illustionest, stardreamer87, Takari-Lover19, Super garurumon, Depthmon, KoumiLoccness,** and **.Gabby-chan182.** – thank you to everyone!

Specific concerns, questions and whatnot:

**Sacred Sakura:** No, Shinji has no Myotismon in him. xD I see how you could have thought that though, since I wrote that Gatomon thought she recognized him… By the way, thanks for reviewing other chapters besides the latest one too! ;3

**The Illustionest:** Rukato it is. ;3 And as for your question about why the four were chosen… Well, I can't give that away yet, can I? (I probably don't even know myself xD)

**stardreamer87: **Ryuki is a pairing of Rika and Ryo… in this story, the alternative to Rukato. And you mentioned you hated Rukato, so I wondered if that meant you were casting your vote for Ryuki? ;3

And now, the moment you've all been waiting for (or probably not)… The updated votes for pairings!

Taiora: 13  
Sorato: 6  
Sora/OC: 1  
Daikari: 5  
Takari: 20  
Kari/OC: 2  
Rukato: 11  
Ryuki: 10  
Rika/OC: 1  
Takumi: 13  
Zoe/JP: 3  
Zoe/OC: 1

Now time to analyze the results! Ahem… Taiora is still beating Sorato, but the latter coupling is making a bit of a comeback… Kind of… The Takari-Daikari battle seems to be lost, but who knows? There are still many chapters left… The biggest surprise this time was the lessening of the gap between Rukato and Ryuki, and now they're nearly neck and neck! As for Zoe's pairings, Takumi still seems to sadly reign.

Okay, I'm supposed to be objective, but I almost always root for the underdog. I do have my own favorite pairings, of course, but I'm trying not to bring them into this story. ; In case you're wondering what those are… I actually like both Taiora and Sorato. I have seen some good Daikaris, but when I was ten and watched the show, I was such a huge supporter of Takari that it's been… burned into my brain, or something. xD As for Rika's guys, I waver a lot between Takato and Ryo. Sometimes I'll like her with Henry too. But I think I like Ryuki a bit more because during the whole Tamers show, Takato was basically pining over Jeri and I don't think Rika is the kind of girl to wait around for some guy to notice her. I do think as personalities Rika and Takato are cuter together though. ;3 And as for the fourth season, I have no preference really. I watched the season, but I never really got into it much. My favorite parts were honestly when Ophanimon, Seraphimon, and Cherubimon were reborn as their Rookie forms, because in the other seasons I love Patamon, Gatomon (slash Salamon), and Lopmon. Um, anyway, I would probably have normally supported Takumi, but I feel bad for JP here. xD

I really need to shut up. Sorry guys. I am almost certain nobody read that. xD

Here we go. I hope you like this chapter. It's taken a few chapters to get the plot really started – meaning there's been maybe a faint trace of romance and just a whiff of future adventure. But hopefully this one starts being actiony and whatnot.

By the way, readers of 'Fast Times' will know that I'm having problems with bolding things on the editing page... Grr... And when I upload, only some things are bolded while others (like the title) aren't. Sorry about that...

The Pyramid of Darkness**  
Part I, Chapter 6: First Mission**

They opened their eyes to see that they were standing a field full of digital flowers.

"Well, here we are," Sora said. "Is this where we're supposed to meet Shinji? And what about our Digimon?"

_Renamon, I'm here._ "Way ahead of you," Rika said. "Call your Digimon." All guilty thoughts of Ryo were gone. It was time to save some universe here.

Sora nodded. _Biyo, we're back! Please come find me._

Kari closed her eyes as well. _Hello Gatomon, I'm in the flower field in the Digital World!_

"Shinji said that he'd find us, so we could just transport anywhere. I picked here because… well, it's pretty, isn't it?" Kari asked with a faint smile. "This is one of my favorite places in the Digital World."

Zoe knelt to look at the flowers closer. "What kind of flowers are these?" she asked. "I've seen them before, but I'm terrible with flower names."

"African violets," Kari said with a broad smile. "Though how they got _here_ I'll never know."

Renamon appeared next to Rika in a streak of golden fur. "Here I am," she murmured. "We have a mission from Shinji so soon?" Rika nodded. "I hope he's not interrupting your school work."

"Today's Saturday," Rika said. "Though I was supposed to be doing volunteer work with Ryo today." The memory of how she'd acted to him came back and she sighed.

"Wait, today's Sunday," Zoe said with a frown.

Rika stared at her. "No it's not."

"But I didn't have school yesterday. Plus I know it was a Saturday yesterday!" Zoe argued.

Sora laughed. "You're both wrong. It's a Tuesday. Right Kari?"

Kari had lowered herself to sit amongst the purple flowers. "Yeah," she said dreamily, not really paying attention as she examined the buds.

Sora nodded. "I just came from taking a physics test. It's not the weekend."

"Different dimensions have different times," Renamon reminded them, then looked at the horizon. "Hmm? Here come Gatomon and Biyomon." Her head turned to the other direction. "And it seems Shinji and DexDorugamon are coming as well…"

Right after saying this, the giant undead Digimon appeared beside them, Shinji on his back. The boy's indigo blue eyes were bright and he wore a tight smile on his face. "Hello," he greeted them.

Kari swallowed. She felt the darkness again. Head pounding, she pulled her legs to her chest. Her maroon eyes fell on the flowers surrounding her, and she saw the closest ones to DexDorugamon beginning to wilt. It made sense – they lived on sunlight, but when darkness was this strong, it completely robbed them of the light they needed to live. She watched as the number of flowers dying increased, spreading out like a slow-moving wave over the field. Yet when it reached the vicinity of the girls, the wave seemed to stop. Kari didn't know why, but she was in no mood to wonder. She was just glad that the flowers weren't dying here.

Gatomon and Biyomon came hurrying up to the group, both reaching their human partners. Biyomon flew in the air next to Sora, and Gatomon jumped in front of Kari as if she wanted to protect her from the dark energy.

"Let's make this quick," Rika said. "I have stuff to do at home. So why exactly are we being called here?"

"Stuff to do?" Shinji repeated with a half-grin. "Like picking up poop? Or do you want to go back to that awkward moment with Ryo?"

Rika's face turned red. "That's none of your business!"

"They all _do_ sound more vital than saving the universe," Shinji said, eyes gleaming with amusement. Rika glared at him.

"What do you need us to do today?" Sora asked. "I'm in no hurry to get back to my physics test, but I'd like to start whatever we're doing as soon as possible." She glanced at Kari, hoping that as soon as Shinji told them what he needed, he would disappear.

"I have located the first two Dimension Stones," Shinji explained. "One is a Digital dimension, the other a Real dimension." He looked pleased. "It was not easy to locate them, but I did it."

"Hooray for you," Rika snorted. "So what are we waiting for? Let's go get them."

"Not quite yet," Shinji advised. "First, you need plans. You can't just rush into things."

"We'll make them up on the way!" Rika argued.

Shinji ignored this. "I believe that you should break up into two groups so we can do this as quickly as possible," he said. "I apologize for pulling you away from your activities. Let's try and do this in a timely manner, shall we? Since one is a Digital dimension and one is a Real dimension, those who wish to fight a Digimon will stay in the Digital World. Those who cannot fight will go to the Real World."

"I vote for staying in the Digital World," Rika said. "Okay with you, Renamon?"

"Of course," Renamon said. "It's a given."

"You're forgetting that you forgot your D-Power again," Shinji replied with a slight smirk at his words. "You and Zoe should go to the Real World."

Zoe nodded, a bit sadly. "If only I had my Spirits, I'd kick that guardian Digimon's butt!"

"Wait, no," Rika said. "Renamon and I are fighters. Let's just go back to my house really fast and get my D-Power and cards! It's not that difficult!"

"No," Shinji said dismissively. "Come prepared next time."

"Are you serious?" Rika demanded, outraged. "This is unbelievable! So you're sending_those_ two to fight? The girl in pink – _Kari_ – wouldn't hurt a fly, and the Sora girl is way too holier-than-thou to do anything that might ruin her image!"

Sora crossed her arms. "Where do you get off judging us? You don't even know us!"

Rika opened her mouth to say something, then fell silent. Sora was right. Ryo had been right. She judged people, and it wasn't fair. She had to stop doing that. Why did everyone have to have a valid point??

"As I was saying, Rika and Zoe will go to the Real World, Zoe's dimension. Kari and Sora will stay here in their own Digital World dimension. Are you all prepared?" Shinji asked. Sora and Zoe nodded, and apparently that was good enough for him. "This will not be your regular experience. I regret that I cannot stay here long, but there is urgent business I must attend to. Good luck! And remember to expect the unexpected…" With that, Shinji and DexDorugamon vanished.

Kari sighed and stood up shakily. She noticed her worried partner's expression and said, "I'm fine, Gatomon." She looked at Zoe and Rika. "Okay. You two ready to go to Zoe's Real World dimension?" Zoe nodded, and Rika just looked away. Kari approached them. "Okay, everyone going to Zoe's dimension join the circle!" Zoe took Kari's hand, and Renamon's paw on the other side. Rika reluctantly completed the circle between her partner and Kari. The Child of Light closed her eyes. _Zoe's dimension… To the Dimension Stone. _Since Shinji had located it, she assumed it would have been decloaked and she could transport there.

Kari was right. The four found themselves in front of a huge black-and-white building. It was split completely down the middle, and even the windows were painted black or white.

"What a weird place," Zoe noted. "I don't know where we are…" She looked around. They were surrounded by rolling green hills for miles. There were no signs of civilization as far as the eye could see.

"I'm going back now," Kari said. "Good luck!" She smiled and vanished.

Rika rubbed her palms together. "Let's do this, shall we?"

"Gladly," Renamon said. The three walked towards the building, ready to do whatever it took to get the Dimension Stone.

-x-

Kari appeared back in the Digital World flower field. "I'm back! So where are we supposed to find our Dimension Stone?" she wondered. "Shinji didn't tell us anything…"

"Maybe he expected we'd know," Sora said. "What seems to be a place where it would be?"

"If it's anything like the Destiny Stones, there's no rhyme or reason to where it is," Gatomon remembered. "It could be in a big bowl of soup for all we know."

"There's only one of these and there are a bunch of those," Biyomon reminded her. "What about somewhere important to us?"

Kari looked around at the field of flowers. "You don't think… it's here, right?"

Gatomon shook her head. "No, or else a guardian Digimon would have attacked us by now. It certainly would have attacked DexDorugamon for killing the flowers."

Kari glanced at the dead flowers sadly and nodded. "You're right. But where else?"

"Gennai's house?" Sora guessed. "He's pretty important here."

"Unless he's the Digimon guardian, I doubt it," Kari said, giggling at the thought of Gennai Digivolving. "What's a really important place?"

Sora and Biyomon had the same thought at the same time. "File Island!" they exclaimed.

Gatomon smiled. "Purr-fect! That sounds right to me!"

Kari nodded. "So let's go!" She hesitated. "Except… how will we get there?"

Sora grinned at Biyomon and pulled her Digivice out of her messenger bag. "Ready, Biyomon?"

"Yeah!" Biyomon replied happily. "Biyomon Digivolve to…" The pink bird was covered in Digivolution light. She grew much larger, and when the light faded she'd turned into a phoenix-like Digimon with talons and fangs. "…Birdramon!" Sora cheered and hopped onto Birdramon's left foot.

Kari glanced at Gatomon, who frowned. "The crests were destroyed… I don't know how I'd be able to Digivolve, despite what Gennai told us about the crests only being what was in your hearts."

"It's fine," Kari said, picking up the white cat Digimon. "Sora, can we get a ride?"

"Of course!" Sora replied. "Hop on!"

In a few minutes, they were soaring through the sky towards File Island.

-x-

"What is _with_ this place?" Rika asked, peering around at the weird house they were in.

Zoe shook her head. "I've never seen anything like it," she said. "These masks are starting to freak me out… a lot."

They walked down the black-and-white hallway, which was lined with black-and-white masks. The masks were almost all the same, except for their expressions, which changed slightly with each one.

"Don't let them get to you," Renamon said. "They're just trying to scare you."

Zoe gulped and tried to obey, but she couldn't keep her eyes off the masks.

"So where's the riddle in this?" Rika complained. "This is boring. Walking down a long hallway when we could be fighting?"

"I'm sure you'd feel differently about it if you were the one who had to do the fighting yourself," Zoe said cheerfully. _Oops. Did that just come out badly?_

Rika raised her eyebrow at her. "I fight alongside Renamon. We Biomerge to create Sakuyamon."

"Um, I have no idea what that means, but I'm sure you're great!" Zoe said quickly. She was kind of scared of Rika and didn't want her to yell at her or anything. She also didn't want to have to split up, because Renamon would of course go with Rika and she would be left all alone. That was what sucked about not having a Digimon partner.

Rika's cold violet eyes just stared at Zoe unnervingly. "Yeah. We are."

"Doors," Renamon suddenly said. "Up ahead of us. Look…"

The end of the long hallway was in sight, and split into two doors. One of them was white, the other black. They approached them warily.

"I guess we have to decide which one to take," Zoe said as they walked. "Let's go with the white one. This is probably symbolic, and symbolically we should always go with the one that represents light, not darkness."

"Are you serious?" Rika asked. "This is supposed to be a test. They're expecting us to pick the happy one. We can't do that or we'll fail the test! Of course we have to go through the one that represents darkness. That's why this is a _test_."

"Maybe it's a test to see what side we're on!" Zoe argued. "And we're not the bad guys. We're the good guys."

"Oh, yeah, like that's not obvious," Rika snorted. "They wouldn't make a test that easy."

"Well then you go through that one!" Zoe exclaimed, impatient and sick of Rika. "I'll go through this one. And we'll see who passes the test _then_."

"Fine," Rika snapped. "Come on, Renamon. We have a test to pass." Rika opened the door and stepped into the dark room, and the foxlike Digimon followed, shutting the door behind them.

"How stupid can you be?" Zoe growled to herself, then threw open the white door and entered into the light-filled room, slamming the door behind her. She didn't care that she was alone now.

As soon as she did so, the door behind her vanished. "Oh crap…" Zoe said. The light in the room faded and it turned pitch black. _What? How could I be wrong? I picked the wrong one?_ A humming noise began, and Zoe recognized it as the background sound of her nightmares.

"_Hello, Zoe,_" came a whispering voice.

Zoe screamed and threw her hands in front of her, searching for anything but finding nothing. "Let me _out_ of here!" she yelled. "Someone… anyone! _Rika_! Help!"

-x-

"There's so much fog," Sora said, squinting into the blankets of mist that lay before them. "I can't see anything!"

"We should be close now," Birdramon called down to them.

"There!" Gatomon said, pointing with one gloved paw towards a large, dark shape that was appearing out of the fog. It was the huge funnel mountain of File Island.

Birdramon flew closer and landed on top of the peak's flat top. The girls and Gatomon jumped off the phoenix Digimon.

"There's nothing around here," Kari noted. "I hope we weren't wrong about File Island being the place…"

"We can't be," Sora said decisively. "Maybe it's just not at the very top or that would be obvious. But I feel as if it's going to be somewhere in this mountain."

"You three walk down the mountain path and I'll follow in the air," Birdramon instructed. "I'll watch out for any Digimon from up here!"

"Okay. Let us know if you see anything," Sora said, then led Kari and Gatomon to the mountain's descending path.

"It sure is cold up here," Kari said as they made their way down the mountain. She hugged her arms to her.

Sora nodded. She was wearing the summer version of her school uniform, which didn't help much. "I guess it's autumn in the Digital World too. Darn! That means winter will be soon, and we'll have to bundle up when we come here."

Kari gave a slight shrug. "Oh, I dunno… I like the winter," she said with a smile. "Though the spring's nicer."

"Give me the summer any day," Gatomon said. "Ahh, I could go for a catnap in the warm sun right about now."

"Sounds nice, but we have a mission to focus on," Kari replied. "If only Shinji had located a Dimension Stone in front of a warm fireplace…"

"SORA!" Birdramon suddenly screeched, diving towards them. Gatomon leapt in front of the girls, looking around for whatever Birdramon was warning against.

Suddenly, a huge green dinosaur-like Digimon appeared from what looked like the side of the mountain – but Birdramon could see from her aerial view that it had come out of a cave. It had huge red and black tusks on its back.

"Oh no – Tuskmon!" Kari gasped. She couldn't help but remember that it was Tuskmon that had beaten Garurumon so badly when Myotismon was searching for the eighth child – and how Kari had sacrificed herself so that Tuskmon, and others like it, wouldn't hurt any other people or Digimon. She swallowed, remembering how terrified she'd been when she saw the Digimon fighting. It was horrible.

Sora evidently remembered too. "It can't be the same one," she said. "Don't worry. Besides, it's just one Champion-level Digimon against two of ours! We can't lose!"

"Unfortunately for you, this Champion-level Digimon has something you didn't expect – a Dimension Stone inside of it!" Tuskmon roared at them.

"What does that mean?" Kari asked, worried.

"It must mean he's stronger than the others," Gatomon said, blue eyes narrowed. "And I can't Digivolve!"

Sora thought quickly. "Can't you Armor Digivolve?" she asked.

Kari shook her head. "No, not unless she doesn't have her Tail Ring. And there's no point in taking it off just so she can Armor Digivolve – except for the fact that Nefertimon can fly, she's just as strong as Gatomon with her Tail Ring."

"Besides, it's my good luck charm!" Gatomon added, then leapt at Tuskmon. "Lightning Paw!" Her paw balled up into a fist and collided with the dinosaur Digimon, but he just stepped back to brace himself. There was no visible damage.

"I've felt that attack back when you were on the bad side, and it's one strong punch!" Birdramon said. "This is going to be tricky… Meteor Wing!" Two tiny flaming meteors flew from each of her wings and hit Tuskmon, who didn't react much more than an uneasy step back.

The dinosaur Digimon lowered his head towards Birdramon. "Horn Buster!" he yelled, and a laser beam went flying towards the giant bird, colliding with her before she could move. Birdramon cried out and was pushed back, losing control of her body. She was sent hurtling towards the ground, at the bottom of the mountain.

"Birdramon!" Sora yelled, racing to the edge of the cliff. "Birdramon, you have to fly!"

Just in time, the phoenix Digimon spun around and flew back up to the cliff, though she was obviously tired and injured. "Don't worry, Sora… I'll protect you. Meteor Wing!" She fired another pair of fiery attacks at Tuskmon, but he just threw another Horn Buster laser beam at her, colliding with the attack and canceling out both.

Gatomon used this time to leap back up at Tuskmon. "Lightning Paw!" Before she punched the Digimon, though, it lowered its head at her.

"Slamming Tusk!" Tuskmon's horns rammed into Gatomon, sending her flying back with a yelp.

"Gatomon!" Kari rushed several steps forward and caught the little cat in her arms. "Are you okay?" she asked her hurt Digimon.

Gatomon nodded, though she was panting. "He's strong," she told her partner. "He's like an Ultimate… a powerful Ultimate, at that…" She sprang out of Kari's arms to stand between the attacking Digimon and the girls.

"Kari, come back here!" Sora called, worried. "We have to keep our distance… And you're too close to the edge!"

Kari looked back at Sora, and nodded, about to hurry back over to her friend. But all of a sudden, Tuskmon pointed his tusks at the divide between the girls. "Horn Buster!" A laser beam was shot out fast, too fast for Gatomon to block. She jumped up, but was too late – she was moving too slow because of her injury.

Sora gasped at seeing the laser beam flying towards them. "Kari! Watch out!" she called, backing up against the mountain. Kari stepped away from the attack quickly, but it brought her even closer to the edge. And then the laser beam hit the ground.

The ground underneath Kari's feet shifted, then gave way. She scrambled to find anything that could support her, her hands finally grabbing a large, protruding rock on the cliff's edge. Sora and Gatomon both ran towards her.

"Horn Buster!" Tuskmon shouted again, aiming for Sora. The attack grazed her side before she jumped out of the way towards the inside of the mountain. Sora winced at the pain and grabbed her side, sinking to the ground.

Gatomon was still running towards Kari. "Hold on!" she called. But her partner was losing her grip.

"Gatomon! Behind you!" Birdramon called, seeing Tuskmon lowering his head at Gatomon before summoning another attack: "Meteor Wing!" It barely fazed Tuskmon, but he glared up at her.

"Horn Buster!" Tuskmon yelled at Birdramon, firing another laser beam. The phoenix Digimon tried to avoid it, but this attack came quicker than most of the others. Birdramon's eyes widened as she took the attack. She was already hurt, and this beam was stronger than the others. She realized she was losing consciousness… She didn't think she'd be able to keep her form much longer. Sure enough, she turned to Biyomon and was able to fly towards Sora with the last of her strength. She fell next to her partner, unconscious. Sora reached out and picked up the little pink bird. "Oh… Biyomon."

"Horn Buster!" came Tuskmon's voice. Gatomon, still running to Kari, was afraid he'd do that. She turned around just in time to leap out of the way. But her blue eyes widened when she realized she'd just avoided the attack, leaving Kari to take the hit.

"No!" the cat Digimon gasped, racing towards Kari on all fours.

The beam hit the ground just above Kari, the crumbling edge of the cliff that she was desperately hanging onto. The last uncertain rocks tumbled off the cliff as even more of the ground gave way. Kari screamed as she realized she was falling.

Towards the jagged-looking rocks further down the mountain.

"Kari!" Gatomon cried. She reached the cliff's edge and dived off after her partner, only one thing in mind: saving Kari. No matter how impossible it seemed.

End of Part I, Chapter 6: First Mission

(again, sorry about the lack of boldness...)

Now that's what I call a cliffhanger! Har har… okay fine, it was a cliff-faller. I hope you liked it! Please _**REVIEW!!!**_


	7. I:7: Tests

I'm back from my holiday break thing! xD I hope everyone had a good New Year's and whatever late fall-early winter holiday they celebrate. :3

We're now at 97 reviews – hooray! So I'm expecting that this chapter will be the one to hit 100! (if not… I will cry. xD) Fast Times at Odaiba High is at 94 reviews so hopefully that'll hit 100 too. So… I propose a race! xD Which will win? I'm updating them at the same time, hooray! Whoever wins the race will get the next update. What an exciting prize. xD

Thank you to all the amazing reviewers who have helped get this story to 97. That's the most reviews of any of my stories, and the more you review the more eager I am to write the fic. Thank you to: **Lord Pata, Depthmon, Y0UR 3V3RY80DY'S F00L, kryuzei, Oversized Bucket, KoumiLoccness, .Gabby-chan182., Booklover13, AnimePinkCess, Akane Naomi, Super garurumon, Blankity **(aka a blank name xD), **The Illustionest, shadowpawz, Dolce, Night Beauty, stardreamer87, cindy, devilishgiirl**(for both reviews!)**, Aero Angemon, BandGeek99, flamealchemist15, saruwatarikoumiko, ** and **inuphantom13**.

Specific questions, etc:

**kryuzei:** I take it you're voting for Rukato then? xD And which OC-ish male character do you mean specifically? I get the feeling you mean TK, cause that got mentioned another time too. xD

Blankity: This is to the person who has a blank name. xD Thanks for reading the thing I thought nobody would read! xD A lot of people don't trust Shinji, poor guy. D: Though I must admit, if I got sucked into another dimension by some guy who was trying to unite dimensions to save the universe, I might not believe him either. xD

**stardreamer87:** Do you mean Gatomon? I'm a little fuzzy on 01 and 02 right now… She might have digivolved without her crest though, seeing as they're really inside the Digidestined's hearts or something. xD

**devilishgiirl:** Sorry, there isn't any Jenruki, though I am writing a new fic that has some in it… But those necklaces he gave her for her birthday will come in handy in this chapter. 8D

**Aero Angemon:** You mean the way TK's kind of following Kari around too? Yeah, I had trouble with that because I didn't want to make it seem like Kari favored one over the other and I also wanted to make it obvious that both Davis and TK liked her. Hopefully it should be better in later chapters though.

**flamealchemist15:** A Kari/Shinji relationship would be interesting, huh? ;3 And I didn't include Savers/Data Squad because I was only going to use the seasons I'd seen completely, and I still haven't seen all the episodes in that one. Though I imagine deciding the love triangle would be a bit easier… xD

**saruwatarikoumiko:**Thanks for all the praise! 8D And the whole Rika-Shinji namesake thing is probably the biggest hint as to Shinji's true identity, though it's still a big cryptic. I wish I could answer it, but I feel like it might give away the whole plot if I do… Sorry. D; At least you'll find out eventually! xD

**inuphantom13:** If my memory's right, all the kids leave their Spirits and say goodbye and such and then go home with their broken, fuzzy D-Tectors (a bit like Jeri's after Leomon died, I think). Hopefully that's what really happened. xD;

Whew! And now to take a look at the electorate's opinions…

The votes!:

Taiora: 20  
Sorato: 8  
Sora/OC: 1  
Daikari: 5  
Takari: 26  
Kari/OC: 3  
Rukato: 11  
Ryuki: 20  
Rika/OC: 1  
Takumi: 18  
Juzumi: 4  
Zoe/OC: 1

Analysis: Well, Taiora, Takari, and Ryuki have all hit 20 and Takumi isn't far behind! It looks like those are the most popular couples. There were no new votes for Daikari, about two for Sorato, and I think just one each for Juzumi (GO JUZUMI! xD) and Rukato. There was also one for Kari/OC, specifically Shinji, which would also be fun to write. ;3 Anyway, it looks like Takari is pretty much decided, unless twenty-two Daikari supporters popped up. o-o; Taiora and Takumi are pretty much winning too. Ryuki is ahead, but not by much. Ah well. We'll see what this new chapter brings!

Eh, it won't let me bold things again... Sorry. x-x;

The Pyramid of Darkness  
Part I, Chapter Seven: Tests

Rika didn't want to admit it, but she was shaking.

Right after Renamon closed the black door behind her, the darkness of the room faded away. It was as if someone had turned on a huge light, but Rika missed the part where it helped her actually see around. Or maybe there was nothing else around. The door behind her was gone, and there was no wall where she knew there was supposed to be one – the wall separating her room from Zoe's.

"Renamon, what are we supposed to do now?" she asked, glad her voice didn't make her sound like she was scared. There was just something about the room that creeped her out, but she couldn't explain what it was.

There was no reply. Rika turned to look behind her and her violet eyes widened when she saw that Renamon was no longer there. "Renamon!" she exclaimed, fear building up inside of her. Where had her partner gone? Had Renamon left her to do this all on her own? "Come back!" Rika yelled, angry at her partner for deserting her.

_It serves you right_, her mind taunted her. _You judged her. You said Digimon had no purpose except to fight._

She closed her eyes, guilt smothering her. She felt like she would drown. But then… _No. That's not what I think anymore._

She didn't think Renamon would leave her, either. Only if she had to. No, Renamon wouldn't abandon her here. She couldn't believe that. She must have been forced to leave – and that meant she was in trouble… "Renamon!" She would go save Renamon. How many times had her partner saved her? It was time to pay back her debt.

Rika began marching through the hazy white light, though she couldn't tell where exactly she was going. She didn't get very far. Soon enough, a voice sounded, and she jumped, stopping in her tracks and looking around for who it was.

"_Hello, Rika._"

Who was it? Rika gasped. It sounded just like her voice. Was it her head again? No, it had definitely been out loud.

"Who are you?" Rika asked, not knowing what direction she should address the question.

"_I am you, of course._"

Rika snorted, despite her apprehension. She couldn't show that she was scared. "No you're not. I am me. You're not."

"_Don't I seem like you to you_?"

"Not really," Rika said with a shrug. "You might sound like me, but you don't have a body or anything. So you can't be me."

"_Don't be so sure_," the voice said. Suddenly, Rika's image appeared in front of her.

"How… how are you doing that? Is that a mirror or something?"

"_No, Rika. Like I said, I am you._"

Rika shook her head at her doppelganger. "Look, just stop impersonating me and tell me where Renamon is!"

The figure standing before Rika suddenly smiled. "_Why don't you find her yourself_?"

"Fine. Go find her," Rika ordered. "If you are me, then you can find her for me. Since that would be the same as me finding her myself, right?"

Her twin laughed. "_Oh, Rika. It just doesn't work like that._"

Rika scowled. "Nothing ever does."

"_But since you're so eager to find your partner, I'll make you a deal. Here she is._" Renamon appeared beside the twin of Rika in her usual way: out of thin air.

"Renamon!" Rika exclaimed. "Let's get out of – "

"_Or is this her?_" the voice asked. Another Renamon appeared beside her. "_Or these_?" Dozens of Renamons began appearing around them.

Rika's hands balled into fists. "This isn't funny, you stupid mirror! Where is the real Renamon?"

"_Don't these all look like Renamon?_"

"Yes, but you look like me and you're not me! So none of these actually _has_ to be Renamon."

"_I guess you won't mind if I… dispose of each one, then_?" With that, Rika's image pointed at the first Renamon, who cried out as her data flickered around her.

"Rika!" the Renamon gasped. She was pixelating and fading around the edges.

"Stop!" Rika demanded. She couldn't take it. It was too real. Even if it wasn't Renamon… And then, what if it was? How could she live with herself if she… killed Renamon?

She didn't even notice she was trembling, she was so scared.

-x-

Zoe had curled up into a ball and was hugging her knees to her. All around her was darkness, and that horrible, oppressive feeling that just made her want to cry from fear. The voice kept pestering her until she thought she'd go crazy.

"_Hello, Zoe…_._Hello, Zoe._" It was relentless.

Finally: "What do you_want_?" Zoe demanded, nearly choking on her words.

"_How rude. You shouldn't be so insolent to someone who is about to reveal yourself to you._"

Zoe looked up, though there was still nothing. "Oh yeah? And what do you know about me? Whoever you even are!"

"_I know that your name is Zoe and you used to have the Spirits of Kazemon and Zephyrmon. Shall I go on?_"

"That's not very much," Zoe observed.

"_It's enough for now. I know more about you than even you do. You fought using those Spirits. You wore a mask, Zoe_."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"_It was never you fighting. You think you could have fought all the Digimon you did? You just took on the mask, and the mask did the rest. You created an illusion; your own false identity. It wasn't really you. It was just a lie._"

"I fought them," Zoe protested. "I don't know who you are, but I fought them. I took the hits and I fought back! Yes, I had the help of the Spirits, but I still fought!"

"_No, it was whoever you were acting as for that period. It wasn't you. You were wearing a mask. Zoe, you know you have thought this before. I know about your thoughts and fears and doubts. You doubted that you had any real purpose in the Digital World. It could have been anyone that took on the Spirits of wind. Why you? You were just in the right place at the right time. You have doubted yourself before, Zoe. You know you have thought these things, that you have wondered if you really did make a difference or if it was the Digimon you were posing as fighting the whole time._"

Zoe swallowed. She didn't know what to say. It was true. She'd doubted herself before, thinking that she was just playing dress-up with the Spirits.

"_It was all just pretending,_" the voice went on. "_You pretended that you were acting as yourself, but it was really just the Digimon the whole time. If you'd gotten his Spirit, you would have acted as Mercurimon did._"

Could that be true? Could she have done the same things Mercurimon did? Did her own self mean anything, or was it just the part she played when she put on the mask of the Spirit? She couldn't argue. It seemed plausible to her – she'd even thought the same things before. And this made despair spread over her quite quickly.

"_Zoe, because you realize this, I am going to give you back a Spirit. Hopefully you choose one who knows how to escape from this room, yes?_" Suddenly, all ten Spirits appeared in front of Zoe. But she felt so despondent that she didn't care. "_Which one will you take?_"

"It doesn't matter," Zoe found herself saying dully. "None of them are really mine. I got my Spirits at random, so… I'll just take one at random."

"As you wish," the voice said. Suddenly, all the lights from the Spirits faded and a new glow began, coming from right in front of her. Zoe looked down to see it was the human Spirit of water – Ranamon's spirit. How ironic. She'd hated Ranamon.

Zoe picked up the Spirit gently, looking it over. Suddenly, her D-Tector began beeping. She fished it out of her pocket and glanced at it before it absorbed the Spirit. Zoe looked at the D-Tector's screen to see that it had the Spirit on it. "So let's see if Ranamon knows how to get out of here, cause I sure don't," Zoe said, her voice emotionless. She held up her D-Tector. "Execute… Spirit Evolution!"

-x-

Kari and Gatomon were falling. Sora saw them go over the edge and yet she could do nothing. Biyomon was unconscious. Sora screamed and forced herself up just after the pair had gone over. "Kari!" she yelled, racing to the edge of the cliff with her Digimon in her hands. _Oh god, Kari… Kari!_

A brilliant pale pink light nearly blinded Sora, and she covered her eyes with her free arm, wincing at the intensity of it. Tuskmon roared from the pain of it.

"Sora?" came Biyomon's faint voice. "Sora, I'm – Biyomon digivolve to… Birdramon!" Sora suddenly found herself holding onto part of Birdramon's wing.

"Birdramon, hurry! Get Kari!" Sora commanded, not knowing how her little bird had come back and Digivolved but not really caring at the moment.

Birdramon nodded and dove off the cliff after Kari, going as fast as she could. But she stopped in midair, unable to keep going. "Birdramon digivolve to… Garudamon!" She was covered in fire and emerged in her Ultimate form. She, too, was surprised at her changes in shape, but had to save Kari.

But she soon realized, as she rushed to the cliff's edge, that she was too late.

-x-

The Rika in front of Rika smiled. "_I guess you can never really say you're certain about which one Renamon is, can you? You just couldn't live with yourself if you turned out to be the one who destroyed your dear partner! Or should I say, our dear partner?_"

"No! You're not me!" Rika argued. She stared at the Renamons, scared. What was she supposed to do? Was this… her test? She vaguely remembered Shinji saying she'd have to solve a riddle or complete a test. But she'd thought that she'd have Renamon and Zoe with her! She didn't think she'd be alone!

_Get a grip, Rika_, she told herself. _Look, you're the most independent person ever. Takato was in a similar situation, when he had to find the true Guilmon. And he probably still sleeps with a teddy bear. If he could do it, so can you!_

"So if I pick the real Renamon, will you let me out of here?" Rika asked coolly. She couldn't show that she was scared.

"_Where is here?_" the clone only asked, annoying smile plastered on her face.

"Ugh! Nevermind." Rika looked at each of the Renamons. They all looked just like her. It wasn't going to be as easy as noticing the wrong eye color or something. How could she hope to choose between them? If she picked the wrong one, Renamon would be destroyed. And how could she live with herself, knowing that had happened?

"_Have you decided_?"

"If you're really me, then I'm sure you know I haven't!" Rika snapped.

"_Take your time. I wouldn't want to rush you into making the wrong decision._"

Rika shut her eyes. How was she supposed to do this? She couldn't act; she was so scared! Scared of choosing the wrong Renamon and having to be there forever – but mostly scared of losing Renamon. She couldn't lose her!

She felt her pockets for her D-Power. Of course she was so stupid that she didn't bring it. She really hated herself sometimes. Her pockets were empty… Wait… No, they weren't…

Rika pulled out what felt like two knotted cords from her pocket. She looked at it in front of her. _Oh…_ They were the necklaces Henry had given her. She'd remembered those, but not her D-Power. That was because she had slipped them into her jeans pocket to give to Renamon the next time they saw each other. She really needed to start carrying her D-Power around with her…

She'd never decided if she was yin or yang. She wasn't really sure how they were different – but Renamon would know. She'd just ask her the next time she saw her.

Wait, the next time she saw her? She could be looking at her right now! There were several Renamons surrounding her. One of them was probably her.

But… she didn't know why, but they didn't… _feel_ like Renamon. Rika knew her partner. She really did.

"She's not here," Rika said, her voice as confident as she felt. "I know it. Go ahead and destroy all these others. They're just bad copies. None of them are even real, no matter how much you make them act like they're in pain. It's just an illusion – none of them are really her! They're all just stupid masks, like this place. And you're not me either – you're just hiding behind your mask!"

The other Rika's face froze. "You win," the voice hissed. Then all the copies vanished. Rika was left standing alone with the necklaces clenched in her fist.

The light seemed to die down a little, and Rika made out the outline of a doorway in front of her. Her eyes widened. Had that always been there? No, of course not. Necklaces in hand, she raced for the doorway. She didn't care where it led, as long as Renamon was there.

-x-

Zoe felt the familiar feeling of Spirit Evolution, with a different new twist to it. Most of the time, it felt like she was being surrounded by winds so gentle they seemed soft as they slipped by. Now, it felt as if she was being submerged in water, the sound of waves rushing around her ears. Finally, the evolution was complete. She looked down at herself: Ranamon's body. It felt so peculiar. She sat there, waiting for Ranamon's urges to overtake her. Maybe Ranamon would be able to get her outside. She didn't care about her hatred for the Digimon as long as she helped her escape.

But… Ranamon was silent. Before, Zoe never had to wonder what she should do. She just knew. And now… she had no idea what she was supposed to do.

What did that mean? If it didn't matter who she was acting as, who she was pretending to be, then why was this so unproductive?

She remembered something: most of the kids hadn't been able to control their Beast Spirits. If they were really only pretending to be Legendary Warriors, wearing masks of the Spirits, then they would have been able to control them. It was because they retained their selves that they had trouble controlling their forms. If they had been under control of the Spirit the whole time, then there would be no problem. But there was.

"I don't know what to do now," Zoe said. "Ranamon isn't kicking in. So that means… when I was Kazemon or Zephyrmon, I wasn't acting the way they were supposed to. I was acting in my own way, doing what I wanted! I… I'm not just an actress. The Spirits aren't just masks. And I was meant to go to the Digital World and get the Spirits of wind!" Zoe returned to her human form, staring at the image of Ranamon's Spirit on her D-Tector with disgust. "I don't want this Spirit. It's not mine. I'm not Ranamon! I'm Kazemon and Zephyrmon, as much as I am Zoe!"

The Spirit faded from her D-Tector. "_Congratulations,_" the voice in the room said dryly. "_You are yourself_."

Zoe grinned. "That's right. It doesn't matter what I look like, I'm still me."

Light began to trickle into the room, and Zoe realized it was coming from a door a few feet in front of her. She'd never noticed it before. Or maybe it just hadn't been there? It didn't matter. She hurried to the door, holding her D-Tector close to her. She knew who she was.

-x-

Garudamon was too late to rescue Kari, because Angewomon already had.

"Angewomon!" Garudamon exclaimed, seeing the blonde angel flying back up, Kari in her arms.

"Hi!" Kari exclaimed with a bright smile. "Don't worry, I'm okay! Ga – Angewomon saved me!"

"Kari!" Sora cried from the edge of the cliff. As the Digimon flew towards her, Sora wiped the collecting tears from her eyes. Angewomon set Kari down on safely on the ground.

"Don't ever do that again!" Sora scolded, hugging Kari tightly. The other girl just laughed, agreeing that she wouldn't fall off a cliff again anytime soon.

"How did that happen?" Sora asked. "How did they go to their Ultimate forms? I thought the Crests…"

"It was the strangest thing," Kari said. "I was falling, and then Gatomon caught me… And when she did, she turned into Angewomon."

"Did you see that light?" Angewomon asked from above. "It came from Kari. It gave us the power to Digivolve – it seems that Gennai was right. The power was within you all along."

"But how come Kari's crest of light made Birdramon Digivolve? As a matter of fact, how did Biyomon even regain consciousness?" Sora asked.

"That was the light too, I guess," Kari said. "And I'm sure you could make her Digivolve on your own. I suppose I just… let out the light of Digivolution."

"How touching," Tuskmon roared. "But I'm ready to destroy you."

Garudamon grinned at him. "You really think you stand a chance against us now? If you didn't notice, we've had an upgrade!"

"A bird and an angel?" Tuskmon scoffed. "Just try and beat me."

"Will do!" Angewomon said. "Celestial Arrow!" She pointed at Tuskmon and brought back her other hand, shooting the arrow at him.

"Wing Blade!" Garudamon called, shooting a fiery beam at Tuskmon.

Both attacks collided with the Digimon at the same time and he roared for a moment, trying to withstand them. But Tuskmon couldn't hold out any longer. He turned into data and vanished, leaving behind a shiny stone.

"Yes! We did it!" Kari cried.

"Thanks to you," Sora laughed.

The stone's color was a mix of pale pink and red, the colors of Kari and Sora's crests. Angewomon and Garudamon turned back into their favorite forms: Gatomon and Biyomon. Kari walked forward and picked up the Dimension Stone, then brought it back.

"You should hold onto it," Kari said, giving the stone to Sora. "You're always the most responsible one." She smiled.

"That reputation doesn't hold up much anymore," Sora said sheepishly, though she took the stone from Kari and slipped it in her messenger bag. "I skipped my physics test today."

"Oh, who cares," Kari giggled. "You did it to save the universe. I think that's being a little more responsible than taking some dumb test!"

"Probably true," Sora said.

"I wonder if the others are done with their test yet?" Biyomon asked.

"We should go there anyway," Sora instructed. "Kari, can you take us?"

Kari nodded with a smile. "Of course! Everyone hold hands!" With a flash of pink light, they were gone.

-x-

Rika and Zoe opened their doors at the same time, stepping into a grey room. On the wall was a final mask, this one a smiling face. It was the only happy mask in the whole building. And standing there was Renamon.

"Renamon!" Rika cried, running to her partner.

"Rika!" Renamon exclaimed. "I was transported out, and I tried to get back in, but I couldn't. Are you all right?"

"I'm fine," Rika said, smiling at the fox. She glanced over to Zoe. "Did you pick the right room?" she asked, oddly enough not feeling grouchy at all that Zoe had been right and Rika had been wrong.

Zoe shook her head, a bit puzzled. "No, didn't you?"

"Nope," Rika replied. "We… shouldn't have split up." Her face was red. That was as much as she was going to apologize to Zoe for freaking out about the whole door thing.

Zoe seemed to understand, because she smiled. "Don't worry, we both made it. Next time we'll stick together!" She didn't feel the need to tell Rika what she'd just gone through, and instead kept it to herself. She knew who she was, and that was good enough for her. It didn't seem like something she should really share, especially not with a complete stranger. She didn't feel like Rika would understand…

Rika, at the same time, had similar feelings. Zoe didn't have a partner. She wouldn't understand Rika's test because she didn't have the same kind of bond that Rika and Renamon had. Zoe wouldn't be able to understand the fear of losing a partner. But then again… it wasn't like Rika would have shared the experience with Sora or Kari either. Maybe she'd tell Renamon later. But not now.

"Now how are we supposed to get out?" Zoe asked. "I mean, that seemed like a test to me. So don't we get our Dimension Stone now?"

"I think the Dimension Stone is a part of this place," Renamon said. "That mask that hangs on the wall… I think that may be what we're seeking."

Rika stepped up next to the mask. "This thing? It's not a stone." She reached out and lifted it off the wall. As she did, the mask glowed with a strange mixture of light and darkness. It shrank in Rika's hands, and all that was left when the phosphorescence subsided was a small round stone. It was, as they all would have guessed, a split of black and white.

From the wall that the mask had hung on grew a door. The hook that had held up the mask changed form to become a small doorknob, and like in both rooms before, the door seemed to appear out of nowhere.

"Yay! We got the Dimension Stone _and_ a way of getting out!" Zoe cheered.

"Let's get out of this crazy place." Rika opened the door and stepped outside, to what looked like the back of the building. The others followed her. Almost immediately, in a flash of pink light, Kari, Sora, and their Digimon appeared.

"What… good timing!" Zoe laughed. "We just got the Dimension Stone!"

"Actually, we were kind of trying to get through for a long time," Kari said with a faint smile, almost apologetically. "It was very frustrating. It wasn't letting me transport to this dimension until just now."

"This stupid place is completely insane," Rika said with a glare up at the building behind her. "I wouldn't put it past it to mess up everything."

"We just got out of the building. Shinji said earlier that he wasn't able to locate it until now," Renamon said. "Perhaps the only reason Kari transported here in the first place was because of her association with him – we'll have to ask him if he's made a special device to help her do that. And when you tried to get back here, Kari, were you thinking of the dimension specifically or Rika and Zoe?"

Kari blinked. "I was thinking about – oh, I see!" Her face reddened. "I guess I'll have to think of the actual dimension next time, because it might not let me reach you until you're out of the cloaked area. I'm sorry."

"Let's go back to the Digital World," Sora said. "Shinji will want to get the two Dimension Stones."

Kari nodded. "Okay everyone! Are you all ready to travel to another dimension?"

"This transportation thing is such an inconvenience," Rika complained to Renamon. "I wish we only had to save _one_ stupid dimension. Then we wouldn't be running around all over the place."

"What fun would that be?" Zoe asked, overhearing. "I like going between dimensions!" She took Biyomon's wing. "I love flying Digimon! You know, you're pretty cute!"

"Yes, I do know!" Biyomon exclaimed happily.

Rika reluctantly took Zoe's hand, with Renamon on her other side. The fox Digimon had to kneel a bit, but she held Gatomon's paw.

"Back to our Digital World dimension!" Kari exclaimed. She closed her eyes, and they vanished.

-x-

Thanks to Frozen Twins for the idea about Zoe's Ranamon thing, by the way.

There it is, I hoped you liked it! Thanks for reading and please REVIEW!!!

Remember, whichever story gets 100 reviews first gets the next update. ;D


	8. II:1: The Weakest Link

Hey everyone! No, that contest thing didn't work out, sorry. xD I'm dumb. But whatever, now both the stories are updated and a new one has begun! You can check it out if you want to… ;D It's called The Parent Untrap and stars Rika and Ryo.

But now, moving on to what you're here for… xD

We've entered the second stretch of this story, aka Part II! Part II focuses on Sora and her life and such. I hope you enjoy it!

Thank you so much to the reviewers who helped this story get over 100! You're awesome. ;3 Last chapter reviewers: **Lord Pata, devilishgiirl, inuphantom13, Aero Angemon, BandGeek99, The Illustionest, Akane Naomi, Super garurumon, Depthmon, flamealchemist15, kryuzei, **and**D'MoonStarLight**. Thanks! 8D

Ahh, and now… the votes!

Taiora: 20  
Sorato: 8  
Sora/OC: 1  
Daikari: 5  
Takari: 27  
Kari/OC: 3  
Rukato: 11  
Ryuki: 20  
Rika/OC: 1  
Takumi: 18  
Juzumi: 4  
Zoe/OC: 1

Haha, only one person voted since the last chapter, so it won't look very different for you guys. I guess it's good that the voting is winding down because it shows that this story has regular readers. 8D Yaaay, thanks! Er… not that I could tell by seeing who reviews or anything. xD; Though I do love getting new readers too.

Oh by the way… here's an **IMPORTANT MESSAGE**!!!!!!:

Although it seems as if the couples are pretty much decided, that doesn't necessarily mean that they will happen in this story. Some characters might end up with one of their guys, but some might not end up with either. And the way the guys handle it will be different too. I'm not sure who will end up with who right now, but I know that none of them can be guaranteed – I have a few ideas, but yeah. So even though Takari basically killed Daikari, there's no promise that Kari will end up with TK… However, I _can_ say that there's er… not really much of a chance that she'll end up with Davis because he's gotten so few votes. Sorry Daikari supporters. Anyway, I hope that nobody gets upset by this or anything. I just wanted to let you know. ;3

To the reviewers!:

**Lord Pata:** Yay, you remembered that episode! I was scared that people would be like "you're making Kari some kind of superhuman!", but I was only going off of what the show had her doing. ;3 I love the Numemon episode, by the way.

**Aero Angemon:** I definitely agree. ;3 That's one of the reasons I love Takari so much: it's the kind of selfless love, on both sides I think, where neither of them mind their own happiness as long as the other is happy.

**KoumiLoccness:** Actually, I'm planning on the Koumi coming very soon! I've been trying to incorporate side couples in the non-saving-the-universe scenes, and since Part II focuses on Sora, Koumi should be in it a lot. ;3

**Depthmon:** Haha, I know, this story has like two chapters and Fast Times has about a million… Er okay maybe those are both exaggerations but still… Poor Fast Times! xD

**Flamealchemist15:** Sadly, Zoe hasn't gotten back her Spirit yet… Though Shinji did say that 'something could be arranged'… Hmm…

Here we go!

**The Pyramid of Darkness  
Part II, Chapter 1: The Weakest Link**

After the fight, they'd returned to Sora and Kari's Digital World where they'd met Shinji and given him the Dimension Stones they'd collected. He was quite pleased. He told them that the one Sora and Kari had obtained was the Crest Dimension Stone, and the one Rika and Zoe had gotten was the Mask Stone.

"Excellent work! I knew you could do it."

Kari didn't waste any time, and quickly asked him the question she'd been wondering. "Shinji, why can't I just transport us by thinking that I want to go wherever a Dimension Stone is?" Kari asked. "Once you told us that you'd located two Dimension Stones, all I had to do was think that I wanted to go there and I did – well, I didn't try thinking that for the Digital World one, but I suppose I could have." She said this all quite fast, and she was leaning against Sora a bit because of the dark energy DexDorugamon had left on Shinji. The auburn-haired girl felt bad for her friend, who seemed to be trying so hard not to give in and curl up on the ground.

Shinji replied without missing a beat. "As soon as I locate the Dimension Stones, their shields are rendered useless. This is the reason I need you four to come to the Digital World very quickly after I have contacted you." His blue eyes rested kindly on Kari, whose breath was labored and whose arms were folded across her abdomen. She seemed to be doing much better this time, though. Perhaps she was building up a resistance to the dark essence of Shinji's undead partner that followed him around everywhere.

"So there's nothing stopping anyone from going, 'hey, it would be cool to go to the Dimension Stones'?" Zoe asked, incredulous.

His eyes flicked from Kari to Zoe. "They're not widely known, and most people don't have the power to transport wherever they wish. However, this is a risk I'm willing to take. It's the only way to obtain them, and we must obtain them somehow." Shinji hesitated. "Were your tests challenging, or dangerous?"

Rika shrugged. "Nothing I couldn't handle."

"Our fight wasn't so bad," Kari agreed. "I felt bad, deleting the Digimon – but they're not real Digimon, because the Dimension Stones are just taking on a Digimon form. So… It was easy, other than that."

Sora couldn't help but stare at her younger friend. Kari had nearly died… Sora was still a little shaky from watching her fall off a cliff. Why was she so unaffected? Maybe it hadn't sunk in yet that she'd been so close to death.

"I'm glad to hear it," Shinji said, smiling. "I would hate to put you in harm's way… I hope the rest of the tests are simple as these were."

Sora couldn't help but wish that they were much simpler and a lot less stressful. She still felt so guilty that she hadn't been able to do anything…

Before Kari took all of them home, they traded email addresses so they could stay in contact. Shinji seemed to think it was a good idea.

Sora didn't really pay much attention. She was too fixated on their mission. What would their next test be? Would she be ready for it? Would she be able to do anything? Or would she just stand there, motionless and useless, as she had been this last fight?

-x-

(a/n: The stupid thing isn't letting me bold or underline or italicize anything again, and all the italics for the next section died when I uploaded for some reason. Sigh. Anyway, from here on, all the statements in parentheses are Sora's thoughts. Er, but not this part though. xD Sorry!)

(Your sister almost died, and it was all my fault…)

"You okay, Sora?"

Sora blinked. She'd been staring at the back of Tai's head, though he was across the classroom, when Matt had interrupted her thoughts. "Um, yeah. Sorry about that…"

"Did you get the answer to number three?" Matt, her assigned English partner for the day, was leaning over, offering her his English paper. Sora wasn't in very many classes with her best friends: Matt, Tai, and Mimi didn't care much about school. Sora wasn't exceptionally intelligent, but she tried her best in school and so she excelled. She shared a few classes with Izzy and Joe, though. However, Sora despised all language classes and was stuck in the lowest one for their grade level – thankfully it was with both Tai and Matt.

Of course, that did get annoying sometimes.

"Yeah… Here you go," Sora said. She handed Matt her paper absentmindedly, then glanced back towards Tai.

Ever since their battle in the Digital World to get the Crest Dimension Stone, Sora had been racked with guilt. She was the oldest one in the group; she should be looking out for everyone. In her first Digital World adventure, she'd watched out for everyone and tried to make everyone get along. The group had taken to calling her "the Digidestined Mother" because of her constant concern for everyone's wellbeing. And yet she wasn't able to fill this role now.

It seemed to her a failure on her part. This time, there were only three teammates to look out for instead of seven. And they were all older than they'd been when Sora had first gone. So how come Kari had nearly died already?

It was because Sora was weak, she knew it. She'd never been the strong one of the group. That was always Tai, or Matt, or even little TK and Kari when the need for celestial beings came. But never Sora. There she would stand, on the sidelines, watching helplessly. Of course, Mimi and Izzy and Joe were all in a similar situation, but it was different. They all had something to add to the group. Everyone loved Mimi, even when she was being a bit selfish, and she could always be relied on the cheer people up. Izzy was the brains behind the group and without him, they would know next to nothing about the Digital World. And Joe could always be relied on in any situation, no matter how much he overreacted. Sora wished she could say she added something to the group, but she couldn't think of a single thing. Even as the matronly figure, she wasn't reliable like Joe was. And she wasn't successful in stopping conflicts that came up, as evident by the number of times Tai and Matt had fought.

She was certainly the weakest link in the group, and she didn't know why she hadn't broken yet. She was fractured, at least: while all the others remained strong in times of crisis, she was fragile, frail, breakable.

Sora wished she didn't doubt herself so much, but she knew that she was insignificant to the group. Even if she did have a purpose once – say, watching out for people and taking care of them – she could no longer claim to do this. Or else why would Kari have almost fallen to her death?

(What would you do if you knew you'd almost lost your little sister, and it was all my fault?)

Sora couldn't help but ask herself these kinds of questions as she stared morosely at Tai's huge hair. She knew how protective Tai was of Kari. When a boy had accidentally stepped on her foot, Tai had nearly given him a black eye. What would he do if he found out Sora had almost been responsible for Kari's death?

(Would you hate me?)

"Sora, how'd you get this? The conjugation for the singular third person form of 'sleep' is 'sleeps', right?" Matt was breaking through her thoughts again.

"Right," Sora said mechanically.

"So how'd you get 'sleep'?"

"What?" Sora looked over. "Oh. Sorry. I guess I made a mistake."

Matt stared at her. "You? Sora? You don't make mistakes. Are you okay?"

Sora smiled brightly. "Yeah! Perfectly fine. Why wouldn't I be? Don't I seem normal? Am I not acting how I normally do?" She hesitated, realizing she really didn't sound okay – like she was trying to hide something. "I… I'm fine. Really."

Matt looked concerned. "Okay… If you need to talk or anything, let me know."

Sora blushed faintly at the prospect of 'or anything'. From across the room, Tai, though he couldn't hear them, seemed upset by this because he turned around and looked towards them.

"HEY GUYS!" he yelled. Tai was the kind of guy who had endless energy in class, even though he didn't like school.

"Hey…" Matt called back. He always had a languid feel to his words and actions. It was strange that the two had become friends, especially since they'd hated each other at first in the Digital World.

(Would you ever speak to me again?)

Sora just stared back at Tai, unnerving him until his assigned English partner whacked him on the head and ordered him to work.

"Did Tai do something?" Matt wanted to know. "You're staring at him kind of blankly…"

Sora shook her head. Hopefully that would clear it of any depressing thoughts about the Kamiya family. "Sorry. I'm just kind of tired."

"Not sleeping enough?"

"Yeah… I haven't been sleeping at all…" It was true. The images of Kari's falling over the cliff and of an unconscious Biyomon tumbling into her arms played over and over in her mind again in pristine color whenever she closed her eyes. She was such a weak failure. How could she let the ones she loved get hurt so much, get so close to death? She was the bearer of the crest of love, though she'd always known that was a joke. She might have loved others, but they didn't love her. And if they thought they did, it was only because they didn't know the true her.

Because if anyone saw the real Sora – the one who let her friends get hurt; the one who stood helplessly by and watched suffering occur; the one who worried too much about being accepted by others, all the time, without cessation – they could never love her.

(What would you do if you knew, Tai?) 

-x-

"Hello?"

"Kari? It's me, Sora. I, um… How are you?"

"Oh, hi! I'm good; how are you?"

Sora hesitated. She was leaning against a wall outside her school, where it was virtually deserted. She was taken aback by the cheerfulness of Kari's voice. But she knew, of course, that her friend was always cheerful like that. Kari was so lucky. She never had to worry about guilt, or fear that others wouldn't like her, or weakness. Kari was strong, she always had been. Even as a young, sickly child she'd been stronger than Sora. Everyone loved Kari – how could they not? She was always happy and kind to everyone. She was so strong… She didn't even seem fazed by her fall. "I'm fine," Sora replied. "Um… I just…" She sighed. "I'm sorry about yesterday," she finally said.

"Hmm? What do you mean?"

Sora squeezed her eyes shut. She slid down the wall to sit on the cold cement ground. "During the fight. I let you fall… It was my fault that you fell. I'm… really sorry."

Kari gasped. "Oh, no! Sora, that wasn't your fault. I was just careless!"

"I… let that laser attack get in between us. I should have pulled you with me, towards the mountain instead of letting you get closer to the cliff. And I wasn't strong enough to support Biyomon… She de-Digivolved…"

"You can't blame yourself, Sora. I could have jumped towards you as well, but I didn't. It's not anyone's fault; we just have to be more careful next time. But it all worked out fine, didn't it?"

Sora bit her lip. It was just because Kari was strong that they'd won. Kari had made Digivolution happen – she'd made _Sora's_ partner Digivolve because Sora didn't have the strength to do it herself.

"You can't beat yourself up about it, okay?" Kari asked.

"But – "

"Young lady! Are you talking on a cell phone?!" demanded a sharp voice next to Sora. She jumped; she hadn't heard anyone approaching. Looking up, she saw a teacher standing there, her hand outstretched. "Uh, Kari? Gotta go!" She hung up.

"Give me your phone."

Sora mournfully handed over her cell phone.

"You can get it at the end of the day. Oh, and you have a detention."

Sora blinked. Detention? She'd never had a detention before! This would probably tarnish her perfect record – oh no, what if she couldn't get into any of the colleges she wanted to? This was terrible!

Sora, without a phone and with detention, sadly walked off to try and find a shoulder to cry on. Preferably _not_ one of Matt's or Tai's.

**End of Part II, Chapter 1: The Weakest Link.**

Awwh, poor Sora. D: She doesn't think very highly of herself, does she? Sad…

There won't be much action for a few more chapters as we continue to explore Sora's relationships and her own mind… Possibly Taiora and Sorato, right? ;3

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this chapter, and please _**REVIEW!!!**_


	9. II:2: When Hell Froze Over

I'm baaack! xD Sorry this chapter took so long. I had finals and school got out and I finally graduated, yaaay! And then I got a new computer as a graduation present, and had to transfer everything over.

My new, faster computer will mean that I get to update more quickly (though this might not be apparent to you guys cause I have tons to do this summer). But it's a different style keyboard, and I type way too fast to see most mistakes. Even though I go over the rough draft and stuff, there might still be some typos that I miss. SORRY. D:

But anyway. I'm here now. xD

Thank you to all the reviewers of the last chapter (and those who reviewed other ones lately, as well): **.Gabby-chan182., KoumiLoccness, flameachemist15, Aero Angemon, Depthmon, Moon Spirt, senses236, Super garurumon, devilishgiirl, Akane Naomi, D'MoonStarLight, BandGeek99, Dragonfire411, The Ilusionest, imaginedreams22, Tori R, **and **Gehktus Yht Kg Yht Tekesuh**.

Responses to individual question-type things (xD):

**flamealchemist15:** Haha, I like Shinji too. Which of the girls should have a crush on him? :3

**Moon Spirt:** The next few chapters will be Sora-centric… About five or six, I think? And then Part III will be Kari's, Part IV will be Rika's, and Part V Zoe's. And… what happens when we get to Part VI? :o I actually have seven parts planned, so. Yeah. xD

Recent votes!:

Taiora: 20  
Sorato: 9  
Sora/OC: 1  
Daikari: 5  
Takari: 30  
Kari/OC: 3  
Rukato: 11  
Ryuki: 21  
Rika/OC: 1  
Takumi: 19  
Juzumi: 4  
Zoe/OC: 1

It's looking like the dominant couples are Taiora, Takari, Ryuki, and Takumi. However, just in case you might have forgotten (since I've been gone forever xD), they still might not end up to be definite thingies. Some of the girls might not end up with anyone at all. Some might end up dating two! :o Oh, who knows. xD You'll just have to read and find out!

**Part II, Chapter 2: When Hell Froze Over**

"You have a _detention_?" Mimi gasped. Izzy, too, looked shocked. He nearly dropped Mimi's hand.

"You? Sora? For doing what, being too perfect?" Izzy asked.

This annoyed Sora a bit. Of course, there was the long-running joke that Sora would only get a detention "when hell freezes over". But she wasn't really _that_ good, was she?

They were standing outside the school right after it had gotten out, and Sora was telling Mimi and Izzy the bad news, in hopes they'd pass it on to everyone else. Or not – that might be better for her reputation. "No… I called Kari on my cell phone," she replied.

Mimi sighed. "That's a dumb rule," she said. "We should have the right to call whoever we want, whenever we want! I've always thought that school is trying to make us antisocial freaks. Why'd you call her anyway?"

Sora shook her head. "Just… similar problems we have going on."

Her best friend's eyes lit up. "Ooh, you mean guy problems, huh? You can tell me everything too you know! I might not be in a love triangle thingy, but I can still give you some advice. I do know a lot about guys."

Izzy frowned.

"I mean, guy. This guy!" Mimi laughed nervously and kissed her boyfriend on the cheek. He smiled again.

Sora hesitated. If only it was just a guy problem. "Not everything is about guys, you know, Mimi," she said. Her voice came out sounding harsher than she'd meant it to. "We don't all live in your little fantasy world." Sora's face reddened. Listen to her – she sounded so… mean! Before she could say anything more, she hurried away. She had to get to detention.

Mimi and Izzy were left standing there, confused. "Well, that was weird," Mimi observed with a blink. "Was that really Sora?"

-x-

Sora thought that the detention hall would probably be as close to hell as the school got – some weird, subterranean boiler room – but she was shocked at how normal it was. Normal rows of seats and normal windows and even a normal teacher, her old Japanese professor. She blinked. It wasn't hell?

Nope, there was Tai. So it couldn't be.

Annoyed and a little embarrassed at her thought, she stared at her friend for a few seconds blankly as he waved at her. "Sorrra! Over here! Sit next to me!"

The teacher frowned. "You there – keep your voice down." She did a double take when she saw Sora. "Sora? Sora Takenouchi? What are _you_ doing here?"

Sora smiled wanly as she made her way over to Tai. "I was on my phone during break," she replied. "I really didn't want to break the rules, but it was kind of an emergency."

Some kid near the back snorted, and Sora's face turned red. Ugh, she sounded like such a perfect little goody two shoes. Who was she kidding – she was! Sora was utterly tired of this reputation, even though she wasn't sure if she could change.

Tai whirled around. "Aw, shut up, Hiroshi. Just 'cause Sora's got a future ahead of her and you don't doesn't mean you have to be such a jealous asshole."

"You!" the teacher gasped. "Shh!"

Tai turned back around and sighed, eyes meeting Sora's. She gave him a slight, gracious smile. At least she had friends like Tai. Sora was actually quite popular, but she was sure this was only because she and Mimi were best friends. All their closest friends would tease Sora, calling her a prude and making exaggerated expressions of shock whenever Sora swore or said anything "unvirginly".

As Tai was one of the most popular guys in school, and one who had a massive influence on the rest of the male population, it made Sora happy that they were such good friends. Of course, there were many other reasons why she loved Tai – loved meaning as a friend, of course. He was always so fun and honest and good-natured. Of course, he did have a bit of a quick temper, and he could never sit still. He always acted before thinking. And his honesty was sometimes brutal, as she recalled.

"So seriously, how come you have detention?" Tai whispered to her, leaning over closer. Sora could feel his breath on her forearm.

"Actually, I called your sister," she replied as quietly as she could. "I wanted to see how she was… Um… With the whole TK and Davis thing." Lame!

But Tai nodded. "Kari's so selfless, it really bums her sometimes. She wants to please everyone, all the time. Man, it must suck to be in her position."

Sora just stared at him witheringly. "Yeah, it sure must."

"Hey, Sor?" Tai asked, as if he hadn't heard her last comment. "You know that dance that's coming up?"

A sense of dread filled her. "Um. Yeah… The formal ball?" It was one of the biggest events of the year, with a live band and gourmet food.

"Right, that thing. I was… er… just wondering if you were going with anyone."

Sora froze. "Um… The thing is… the thing is…" She suddenly had a stroke of genius and doubled over in her seat, grabbing at her abdomen. "Ow!"

"Sora! You okay?" Tai didn't even bother whispering now.

"I just… Feminine troubles!" Sora said, getting up and staggering to the front of the room, where she asked to be excused and hurried away to the bathroom.

She stood and stared at herself in the mirror. "Come on, Sora. Get a grip. Tai is your best friend, not just some loser guy who tried to ask you out. Sure, there's Matt, but… but…"

Sora was lying to herself. She let herself accept the truth. Yes, it would be fun to go with Tai to the formal ball. It would be fun to go with Matt, too, but in a different way. Or was it different? Ugh, she didn't know!

She tried to imagine what a date with Tai to the Formal Ball would be like…

_A knock at the door. Sora glanced down at herself before answering it. Her red-orange dress fit her perfectly, though she did have doubts about how it clashed with her auburn hair. Oh well – it was Tai's favorite color. Finally, she answered the door with a huge smile._

_Tai was standing there, wearing a suit… He certainly cleaned up well. He returned her grin and held up his wrists. "Check out my cufflinks!" he said, excited. Sora peeked at them. They were miniature soccer balls. Um… She guessed his overobsession with the sport was kind of cute, but she'd hoped he'd kind of… make her the center of attention tonight. But that was stupid, and selfish anyway. Besides, these were just cufflinks! He probably wouldn't talk about soccer at all._

"_Dude, can we leave a little early? There's a soccer game on TV tonight, and I don't wanna miss it! I thought maybe we could watch it on your plasma screen. Sound good? It'll be like the old days, when we always used to watch together! Remember? GOOOOAAAALLLL!"_

_Sora stared at him. "Leave early? Like… how early?"_

_Tai shrugged. "We can still be there for like an hour and make the game, so it's cool. Besides, the whole dance thing is overrated. It's hanging out with you that's fun!"_

_Sora sighed. "Me and my plasma screen," she muttered inaudibly. "Wait, why is there a soccer game at night?"_

"_It's in Italy."_

"_Wait, what?" That didn't even make sense! Or maybe she was doing her time zones incorrectly… Ugh, it was too difficult to think about!_

"_Let's go!" Tai said, slinging one arm around her. "Oh, by the way, I couldn't get the car tonight. You okay with walking? There's just, like, ten blocks uphill, the rest is mostly flat."_

Sora shuddered. Dating Tai would be like dating soccer. Sure, she was attracted to him, and flattered he liked her. She thought she might even… well, it didn't matter. Soccer would probably always get in the way, and she couldn't ask him to give up his obsession. That was like… his life.

Maybe she should go with Matt. He wouldn't be all buddy-buddy and casual like Tai was…

_There was a knock at the door, and Sora smiled before she glanced at herself in the mirror to make sure she looked okay. She was wearing a long and elegant black dress that shimmered indigo in the light. Sora hoped it was a perfect match with her date. She opened the door with a smile._

_Matt stood there, smiling back at her, eyes wide. "Wow. Sora, you look beautiful." He didn't look too bad himself, though his blonde hair still did that annoying-but-cute thing Sora love-hated where it fell in his eyes. He handed her the dozen red roses he held in his hand. "I got these for you…"_

_Sora smiled even wider. "They're beautiful!" she exclaimed._

"_Just like you," Matt said. Sora blinked. Er, he'd already said that. Maybe he was just nervous? No, he didn't look like it. And what was up with the cheesy line anyway? This wasn't some overly-done romantic comedy._

"_I rented us a limo," Matt continued. "There's a moon roof, so we can stargaze on our way to the dance."_

_Sora doubted that they'd be able to see any stars with how fast they'd be going in the car, but it was a sweet idea. If not a bit… Wait. Had he said… limo?! They weren't on their way to prom or their wedding or something! This was just some dumb dinner dance. Plus, that was way too expensive. This was only one date; it wasn't like they were going out!_

"_Also… I have a surprise for you," Matt said, with an excited gleam in his blue eyes. "I was able to get seven minutes at the mic, so I'm going to be playing parts of my new song – which is ten minutes. It's called 'You Make My Heart Soar'. Any guesses on what it's about?"_

_Sora's eyes widened. "Um… wait. You're playing a seven-minute long song about me?" she asked, panicked._

"_Good guess!" Matt nodded with a bright smile. "Want a preview?" He took a deep breath, and began: "Beautiful girl, you make my heart soar – ah, ah, you make my heart soar." He hesitated, and peeked at her. "See how the 'ah's come after the 'soar'? It's because of how it makes it sound like your name."_

Gross! She hated being the center of attention, and it was one of the worst songs she'd ever heard. Her imagination could never get a job as s songwriter.

Okay, she had to admit that Matt was quite possibly the most attractive, no, most devastatingly gorgeous guy at their school. But he would make the date way too romantic. She wanted it to be more fun, not so serious and deep and soul-mate-ish.

Kind of like how Tai would make it.

Only not that extreme – she wanted something in the middle. Fun like Tai, but romantic like Matt.

But it wasn't like she could just fuse the two guys together. Sadly enough.

-x-

Sora returned back to the detention room and took her seat next to Tai again. He looked at her with a concerned expression. "You okay?" he asked.

She nodded. "Yeah, I'm fine now," she replied. "Um…what were we talking about? Shoot, I forgot! Oh well!" She tried to laugh.

"The dance."

Ugh. Thanks, Tai. "Oh, right!" Time for her to divert his easily diverted mind. "Hey, Tai, remember when we went to that one middle school dance together? It was way back when Matt and Mimi were crazy about each other, and she flew all the way back from New York just to go. And we went… I mean, just as friends. But Matt and Mimi were too shy to dance together, so we ended up – "

"Playing that stupid musical partners game! Totally remember. How could I forget? We stopped the music when we were right at them, so they had to dance the next dance together."

Sora nodded, laughing. "And then Matt stepped on Mimi's foot, and she wouldn't talk to him. Until we locked them in the haunted bathroom together!"

Tai grinned. "I told Matt that Mimi was crying, and that she would only see him, so he went into that girls' bathroom… And then we put the chair in front of the door and turned off the lights."

"How did we do that?" Sora asked, frowning a bit.

"The light switch was outside the door, remember? And then, after hearing them both scream in very high-pitched voices, we ran outside and fell on the grass and laughed for like an hour."

Sora nodded. "Yeah! Finally, they came out and they were so mad… Later, though, Mimi thanked me."

Tai laughed. "Matt did too!" Sora wasn't sure if she wanted to hear that, but whatever. It wasn't like she was jealous or anything… "He told me he and Mimi were just hugging the whole time."

"That's what Mimi told me too. I guess it has to be true, then. Darn it! Why didn't they do anything more interesting?"

Tai lifted an eyebrow. "I'm telling Izzy."

"Izzy was already in high school then."

"So? They're going out now."

Sora laughed again. "Ugh, fine. Still. We did all that work for a hug."

Tai nodded. "Though hugs are nice, when they're with someone you like…"

Aw. Tai sounded, and looked, pretty cute right then. And she had known him since they were in elementary school, so she was well-acquainted with both his good and bad qualities. If they started going out, it wouldn't be something they would be rushing into. Same with Matt, actually. But Tai laid all his cards out on the table, while Matt still didn't open up to her completely. She had to admit, the mystery was intriguing, but there was something so appealing about the way she knew Tai. Nothing was hidden. And the way Sora felt when he looked at her, with his warm brown eyes… She knew that couldn't be anything bad. When he smiled at her, it felt like her stomach did a tiny, faint somersault.

And yet… There was still Matt. Sora felt herself feeling overwhelmingly guilty as she unlocked eyes with Tai and went to stare at her hands on the desk. _Oh, Matt. I'm sorry._

She'd almost forgotten him, almost drowned in Tai. How could she hurt Matt by choosing Tai over him? Tai was always the happy one, and Matt was the one who seemed to have scars from his past. He didn't like to show his emotions, but it would be hard on Matt. How could she add another scar to the ones he already had?

Sora couldn't believe how complicated this was. How could she choose one over the other? Though… how could she not? There were other girls in this world. Girls who were prettier, smarter, nicer, more fun, more experienced. And if she didn't choose between Tai and Matt soon, she knew she would lose both of them.

And then nobody would love her. And she'd be alone.

**End of Part II, Chapter 2: When Hell Froze Over**

Hope you liked it. Remember to watch Fast Times at Odaiba High for an update soon…ish. And check out my new story The Parent Untrap! It's about Rika and Ryo and their growing relationship and whatnot. ;D

END OF SHAMELESS PROMOTION. xD

So, please _**REVIEW!!**_ 8D


	10. II:3: Tennis

Hello everyone! I'm sorry I took so long to update. It was actually a mistake on my part. I was certain that I'd already uploaded this chapter, since it was so short! I guess it's just been sitting there on my computer forever without being uploaded. D: Sorry about that! I went to upload Part II's chapter 4 and there wasn't a chapter 3… Anyway, because I'm dumb and forgetful, I will be uploading chapter 4 at the same time as this one! Yay! If anyone reviews both chapters, I will love them and give them a present. xD;

ANYWAY!

Thank you so much to all you reviewers of the last chapter. C: **Depthmon, KoumiLoccness, Lord Pata, arkofcreation1214, Super garurumon, kawaii-pal, Akane **(I assume! xD blank name but…), **YumeKageHighSummoner, Sly Rowling, Phil, Wind princess, BandGeek99, co426e **(for all of them! ^^), **Arc, Nessa675, Ayano-Chan, AeonOfDragons, **and **Sunny Lighter**.

Specifics:

**Depthmon:** My inspiration for this story? You know, I have absolutely no idea. o-o; I rarely can remember the reason why I wanted to write something, which is bad. xD I do remember writing the first chapter, though, without any idea of where it was going. And then I was like "okay… what now?" so I added the last bit about them being transported, and made them go to Azulongmon. Again, this was before I worked out the actual plot (I have a rough outline of it now, thank goodness) so I hope I can actually fit him into the plot. Hmm… By plot, I mean what's already happened and also stuff that hasn't yet (there are some plot twists and whatnot). Long, vague answer to a simple question, huh? xD; Sorry!

**KoumiLoccness:** There's some Koumi in the next one too, yay! I wish I could have more of them in the fic. But oh well, maybe I'll write another fic about just them or something.

**Akane:** xDD I know you didn't ask anything specific but I loved your plushie store dialogue thinger. ^^

**Arc:** To answer your first question… the Digimon may have parts, but they wouldn't be tested like their human partners are. For example, Renamon's part with Rika… She was involved in the test, but not tested herself. Question 2! I do already have a plot and ending and everything planned (I never do this, so it's weird o-o).

Votes:  
Taiora: 23  
Sorato: 11  
Sora/OC: 1  
Daikari: 5  
Takari: 32  
Kari/OC: 4  
Rukato: 14  
Ryuki: 21  
Rika/OC: 1  
Takumi: 21  
Juzumi: 4  
Zoe/OC: 1

**The Pyramid of Darkness  
Part II, Chapter Three: Tennis**

There was nothing like a good workout to erase the sting of a bad day.

Sora smashed the tennis ball back across the net to her teammate Arashi, who jumped for it and hit it back. Sora darted across to the other side just as the ball was being hit, eyes widening. She wasn't going to get that one! With a slightly awkward backhand, she sent it flying back across the court. Apparently, Arashi had also assumed Sora wouldn't make it. Her eyes widened in surprise, but she was too late, and Sora scored.

She was sweating now, though she smiled over at Arashi, who also looked worn out. "That was just lucky, Takenouchi!"

"Believe me, I know," Sora replied sincerely.

Suddenly, she heard clapping coming from her left. She turned, confused, to see three girls standing there: Kari, Rika, and Zoe? Kari and Zoe had been clapping, while Rika just stood there, looking annoyed. Where did they come from? Wait, had Shinji found another Dimension Stone? Did she have to go fight now? But she was so exhausted from tennis…

The coach blew her whistle, then pointed with her thumb towards the benches alongside the court. Their practice game was over, and the next pair would be going next.

Sora set down her racquet before she headed outside the enclosed court. "Hey! What are you guys doing here?" she called out to them as they came towards her. She stopped to get some water from the drinking fountain.

"Didn't you get my message?" Kari asked.

Sora wiped her mouth after drinking. "Ah. My cell phone was taken away earlier… That was why I had to get off so suddenly with you this morning."

"Oh! Oh no! I'm sorry!" Kari looked really worried about this.

"No, it's okay," Sora said. "I can get it in a few minutes, as soon as the last pair's done playing. But anyway… Did Shinji contact all of us?"

Kari shook her head. "No," she said. "But… Okay, here's the thing. Last time, we were really unprepared. We managed to get two of the Dimension Stones, but it was really hard for us, and, I assume, for you guys." She glanced towards Zoe and Rika, who nodded affirmatively. "I just think we should have a better plan this time, and… the only way we can do that is together… So I brought them to this dimension!"

Sora nodded. "Okay," she said. It was true; they needed better preparations. Kari almost died, and if she had, Sora would have died as well. Without Kari's inner crest somehow working as Digivolution light, they would never have stood a chance. And, of course, she still felt very guilty about what happened to Kari, even after all that tennis.

"I'm fighting next time," Rika said. "I don't care what Shinji says. Renamon and I can go _mega_. Come on, how can we pass that up?"

"What do you mean, you both can?" Sora asked, confused.

"We Biomerge," Rika said, as if it should have been clear. "You know? We fuse together and create one ass-kicking form."

"I didn't know Digimon and partners could do that!" Kari said, eyes wide. Then she laughed. "Well, I didn't know people could turn into Digimon either," she said, glancing at Zoe, who shrugged with a grin.

Sora narrowed her eyes, thinking. "Hmm," she said. "Actually, that's a good point. About the differences in Digivolution and stuff? I wonder if those only work in the dimensions we're from."

There was a pause, as this information sunk in.

"No way," Rika said stubbornly. "It's probably just because of the different Digivices. I mean, you two fought last time, right? And you Digivolved?"

"We were in our dimension of the Digital World, though," Kari said.

"I was able to Spirit Evolve in our test…" Zoe mentioned, not telling them any more details, like about how she turned into the evil-ocean-witch Ranamon. "Wait, but… I was also in my own dimension, despite it being the Real World one… Are the conditions for Digivolving the same in your Real World and Digital World dimensions?" she asked the other three.

They all nodded, then Rika hesitated. "There's one difference… In the Real World, I couldn't Biomerge with Renamon at first because she was data and I was… you know, human. In the Digital World, I was made into data, so I could. But later, we were given a gift that made us able to Biomerge in either world."

"So our two theories are that the conditions are different in each world, or that the conditions are different for each Digivice and will work in each world," Zoe said, glancing around at them.

Kari gave a slight shrug, and a bit of an apologetic smile as if she was supposed to know. "I guess we won't find out until the next Dimension Stone…"

Sora's hands rolled up into fists. She felt completely useless. Even in the Digital World she was used to, even fighting alongside her old friends, she couldn't do anything. Next time, she'd be in an even more dangerous, unfamiliar area, and she would be able to do nothing! She could stand there and decide the best battle plan, and then she would find out later she was wrong. She could try and watch out for the others, but they'd just be in even more trouble. If only she had her crest, maybe she could actually hope to do something. But she knew that it was gone, and she might never be able to use it again. Others had such easy crests to use, it seemed… Why was hers so difficult?

"Sora?" Kari asked. "You okay?"

Sora looked up, noticing that all eyes were on her. She waved her hands in front of her dismissively, with a rather large fake smile. "No! No! I mean, yes! I'm fine!" She sighed heavily after a moment. "Okay… I'm just worried about our next fight, that's all."

"Was it really that bad?" Rika asked. "I'd rather fight than do what I did before. I'm used to fighting, not… psychological mind-destruction!"

Sora shook her head. Rika wouldn't understand how she felt. How could she tell her that it _did_ mess with her mind, seeing Kari almost die like that? In fighting, there was both a physical and emotional threat. It seemed like in the other challenge, there was just an emotional one. Sora would prefer that any day. The image of Kari falling played over and over again in her mind, so vividly that sometimes she would forget to breathe.

"So what's our plan? Test the waters or just go with whatever dimension we get next?" Zoe asked. "I mean, if we get called to fight in Rika's Digital World or something, should Rika go?"

Rika shrugged. "Yes? Of course. And one of those two can come with me, since Digivolution for them is the same as it is for me, excluding the Biomerge thing. Both of them can help me fight, if there aren't two Dimension Stones at once again."

Sora didn't want to fight. She would do almost anything not to fight again, but if she didn't fight – in this purely hypothetical situation – then Kari would have to. And she couldn't do that. Even if Sora didn't know how to use her crest, couldn't even help Biyomon digivolve to Garudamon.

**End of Part II, Chapter 3: Tennis**

Yay! I know, it was short. D: But you have a whole new chapter to go on to, so why waste your time here?

Remember that if you review this chapter along with the next, I will give you a present! xDD; But whatever; it doesn't matter. ^^ I just like seeing reviews, though detailed ones are always best. C:

I STILL LOVE YOU ALL! 8D

…moving on. Next chapter. No reason to be here, so go! xD


	11. II:4: Calculus Burns

Nothing to say here since I'm uploading two at a time! But of course I say stuff anyway. x-x;

ENJOY! xD; And happy new year! ^^

**The Pyramid of Darkness  
Part II, Chapter Four: Calculus Burns**

"So if you look at the derivative here, it's really… Heeheehee!"

Sora tapped her pencil against the table, burying her face in the other hand. "I am never going to pass this intro to calculus test."

"Like any of us are!" Matt said tiredly. His head had come to rest, cradled in his arms folded on the table, a long time ago. "The only math Izzy knows right now is him plus Mimi equals love."

Sora peeked out of her hand at the couple. Izzy had piles of paper in front of him and was supposed to be teaching them how to not fail the test tomorrow. Instead, he was teaching them something more along the lines of how to be sick. Mimi sat on his lap and every two seconds would tickle him or try and cuddle with him or call him something cutesy like "Beanbear," whatever that meant. And then of course Izzy would have to respond with his insane giggling (seen above), or tickling her in return, or cuddling with her, or calling her something along the lines of "Smookiebuns."

It was cute at first. But when their whole grades were on the line and all they knew about calculus was that Mimi could draw lopsided hearts on the axis of Izzy's graphing calculator? It was just annoying.

Sora felt so bitter for being irritated with their love-fest, but it was a bit difficult not to be. "It's really _what_?" she asked Izzy.

"Whahahahaaaat?" he replied, stretching out his word because he was laughing in the middle of it.

"That derivative crap thing!" Matt snapped, head coming back up. "Whatever the hell you were saying before you started drooling all over Mimi for the fifteenth billion time!"

Mimi giggled. "Aw, Matt, you're just jealous!"

"Ha!" was the blond's simple response.

"Izzy, pleeeease," Sora begged. "If Matt and I don't pass this test, we'll never be able to catch up in time for the next one. And then the next one will be completely impossible. And then on and on until the final. And then we'd fail. And then we would have to retake the class, and couldn't graduate, and… it'd be horrible. Do you want that to happen to us?!"

Izzy sighed. He opened his mouth to speak but Mimi cut in.

"Okay, fine, guys! I know when I'm not wanted. Give me… oh, five minutes to cuddle with Izzy before I leave, okay?"

That seemed fair. Sora and Matt looked up at the pink-haired girl hopefully, then nodded. The couple left the room, giggling.

"Whew," Sora exhaled, checking the clock to mark five minutes. "I hope Izzy can teach us this…"

"Of course he can; he's a genius, right?" Matt asked rhetorically. "He'll invent some amazing way of cramming all this stuff in our brains."

"I hope so…"

"Hey, um… Sora?" Matt asked, in a quieter voice this time.

A bit warily, she looked across the table at him. Instead of blankly staring at the table, his blue eyes were fixed on her. They were too intense; boring into her sharply. She looked away quickly, pretending she was getting her things ready for Izzy's return and teaching. "Yes?" she replied, turning to a new (doodle-free) page in her notebook and creasing the page as if it were vital.

"Have you been okay lately?"

"Mmhmm!" She began to write her name and the date on the page, moving her pen slowly, taking up time. Anything to not have to bring her eyes up and see him looking at her like that.

"No, listen to me. I know I've asked you this a lot in the past few days, but it really seems like there's something going on with you. You haven't been yourself. It's reminding me of way back in the Digital World… when the darkness almost took you over. Do you remember that?"

Sora hated this. She wished Izzy would come back. She even wished that Izzy _and_ Mimi would come back. Even learning more pet names they had for each other would be better than this. "No darkness is taking me over," she said, laughing it off. "You're so dramatic." She still couldn't look up.

He hesitated. "Okay," he finally said. She glanced up. His intense look was gone, replaced with something else. Was it just her, or did it seem like he was trying hard to look normal?

"I do have another question, though," he said.

"Okay."

"You know that dance that's coming up?"

Oh. Oh dear.

"Yes…" was all Sora could manage.

"Well, I think I told you this? Maybe not. My band's actually playing the first half."

He hadn't told her. "Wow, really?" she gushed, trying to distract from what was going to happen next. "That's great! What a good opportunity!"

"Yeah. Well, I was wondering…"

Crapcrapcrap. Her eyes scanned the kitchen around them, then she coughed loudly. "Ugh! I think I'm getting sick." Glancing towards Matt with a cheerful-yet-apologetic smile, she asked, "Do you want any tea? I think I'm going to make some for my throat." She hopped up to rummage through the counter, knowing exactly where Izzy's family kept their tea after so many visits there.

"No, I'm good…" An intake of breath sounded, warning her that he was about to speak again.

"Here's the tea for sore throats! You sure you don't want any? Oh, not of this kind, of course. There's normal green tea too. And some Egyptian licorice, and English breakfast tea – it's not breakfast, but that's okay!"

"No thanks."

"Suit yourself!" Sora grabbed a tea kettle from another cabinet, then filled it with hot water and plunked it down on the stove, annoyingly clumsy with it. She turned up the heat, all the while humming a random song loudly. She didn't know what song it was, but it really did the trick! Then, she turned around, leaning against the sink and smiling at Matt.

He was smiling back at her. Like they were sharing a secret or something. Crap, why?!

Oh. Oh no.

The song she was humming. It was one of Matt's band's songs! It was written by Matt! And it was a _love_ song.

Yikes.

"So you've been listening to our new album, huh?" he asked.

She had. Obviously. "Yeah…"

"What do you think about it?"

Ooh! Maybe she _did_ seem like a stalker, but at least they were getting away from the subject of the dance! "I really like it," she said honestly. "It seems a lot more polished than the last CD… More professional, you know?"

"Which song is your favorite? The one you were humming?"

Sora didn't know, really, so she just nodded. "Yeah, I guess so!"

He smiled warmly. "Okay. I'll make sure to play it at the dance, then. But about that…"

"Oh, cool!" she exclaimed. Lame interruption, but all she could come up with on such short notice.

"Um, yeah. But Sor – "

The tea kettle began to whistle! Sora could have _married_ it for that! She turned to the cabinet that housed the tea cups and got a cute little one, then plopped the sore throat tea bag in it, hoping it wouldn't make her feel like she actually _was_ sick (funny how certain tastes did that). Returning to the stove, she turned it off and grabbed at the kettle stupidly, forgetting in her gratefulness that it would be more than just a bit hot.

"Ouch!" The next thing she knew, the fingertips of her right hand were throbbing with heat, quickly turning red. Tears collecting in her eyes from the sharp pain, she heard the sound of Matt's chair scooting back.

Suddenly he was behind her, moving her to the sink. His arms encircled her on either side, one hand taking hold of the wrist of her burnt hand, the other reaching to turn water on. She could feel him pressed against her back, and his face very very close to hers, hovering somewhere over her left shoulder. "You should be more careful," he said in a low, quiet voice. He was so close it didn't need to be louder. He moved her fingers under the flow of water, and she winced a bit at first. It stung. But it contrasted so much with his hand around her wrist. His touch was soft and cold, unlike the heat of her fingers.

They stood like that for what seemed like a long time but couldn't have been more than a minute. Sora was all too aware of Matt's breathing; his every movement. Her cheeks must have been as red as her fingertips, but at least he probably couldn't see her face.

"Why are you so distracted?" he asked her.

If only she could tell him.

"Does that feel any better?" His next question. She bent her burned fingers, rather unnecessarily (though she _had_ realized she hadn't been paying much attention to the pain in them) and nodded truthfully.

The water continued to run over her burn. "A few more minutes; then we'll bandage it," he told her. She nodded, relieved. At least now he'd stop standing so close to her!

Except… he didn't. Oh, great. She could think of at least a trillion (er, where had that number come from?) people who would do anything to be in her position right now. Not that she was hating it or anything, but that wasn't the point. Things would just be a lot easier if he left and went to sit back down at the table; simply _breathing_ would be a lot easier!

"Anyway."

Oh. No, no! Not this again! Sora didn't think she could dodge the question this time. Damn girly hormones! _Er, hurry now, think of an excuse! Ignore the fact that he's so much warmer than you thought he would be, except for his hand… Hm, is all his skin so smooth like that? Oh crap! Stop it! Right now!_ Oh no, but how to stop anyway? He was breathing out again. How come nobody ever told her that breathing out was the most effective form of seduction ever?? It definitely was. _Gaah! Think of… of… umm… grass! Yay, grass. Happy grass._

"I'll be playing the first half, but I was wondering if you'd go with me anyway."

…while she was busy thinking about grass, he'd somehow found a way to ask her anyway. Oh, lovely.

"I…" she began.

Any excuse. Anything. Any distraction, any freaking love noise of Mimi and Izzy to break the tension!

"Um… would…"

_Dear god, whoever you are, I'm sorry for my previous non-worship of you, but if you just give me a little more time with this whole thing I promise to… do something nice! For orphans or something!_

Wow, Sora. What an effective prayer. She could have kicked herself, but she didn't have much room to move since Matt was right there. Yeah, like she needed to be reminded of his proximity.

"Would… love…"

_Bzzt. Bzzt._

It was her phone. Vibrating.

_I love you phone! I love you god!_

"Ah, hold on!" Sora said airily, sliding out of his grip (darn?) and racing over to her bag. She fished out her phone with her hand that wasn't burnt, about to welcome any call, any text, anything!

_This is Shinji. Kari should be coming to get you and the others soon. You are needed in the Digital World._

As her eyes widened from reading it, her phone vibrated in her hand and another text came in, this one from Kari: _S called, sorry this is short notice, Z and I coming soon!_

Uh oh. She looked up at Matt. He was leaning against the sink, trying not to look so eager. "You would love to what?" he asked impatiently.

Oh. Right. Crap! "I would love to answer that question tomorrow!" Sora answered cheerfully. "I actually have to go now… Bye!" She grabbed her bag, shoved all her things into it, and ran out of the room.

_Sorry Matt. I promise I will answer tomorrow_. _After all… _She sighed. _If I don't pick one of them, they'll get tired of me… I'm not independent. I need someone's love._ _And if they can no longer love me as a friend, then…_

"Wait!" he'd called after her, but she'd ignored him. Or maybe she was already gone. Matt turned off the water in the sink. "The bandages… and the calculus test…" he said, to no one.

Not to mention the tea.

In the empty hallway of Izzy's apartment building, Sora was running towards the corridor when all of a sudden there was a distortion of light and two girls fell nearly on top of her.

Kari looked ordinary enough, but Zoe was wearing huge heels, a slathering of make-up, and some sort of tiny red dress.

"No time to ask," Zoe said darkly, at seeing Sora's expression.

Kari giggled. "Let's go get Rika!" They reached for each others' hands and then they were off.

**End of Part II, Chapter Four: Calculus Burns**

Please review! Only three more chapters until Part II is over!

Because Kari's part is coming up soon, I'd like to know all your ideas about the Kari/Shinji pairing. Any thoughts? Would that be interesting or not? I'm not saying like "oh that will definitely be the final pairing!" but a lot of you have said Kari/OC and I'm wondering if you mean Shinji by that.

Even if you haven't voted for that I'd still like to know your feelings about the pairing, independent of your Takari/Daikari loyalties. xD

For example: "Although I support Takari, it would still be interesting to throw Shinji into the mix and see how he interacts with Kari..." or something. o-o; Okay, stopping now because I'm just patronizing you guys by treating you like second graders. xD! Sorry.

Anyway, please review and tell me what you think (about anything)! 8D


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